Argenta lets you record payroll distributions and, if you want, post them straight into your General Financials system. This article covers how to enter one and how it lands in your General Journal.

To get started, select Payroll Distributions from the Staff & HR area of the left sidebar, then click Add New.

On the Add A New Payroll Distribution screen, pick the Staff Member you are paying (required), then click Create Distribution & Enter Details. This creates the distribution and opens the Payroll Distribution Workspace, which has five tabs: Distribution Details, Connections, Payroll Files, Payroll Notes, and Record Permissions.

Distribution Details

Enter the pay period and payment details here:

• Staff Member, Payment Date, Pay Period Start Date, and Pay Period End Date – the staff member and the dates carry over from the add screen; adjust them if needed. (Payment Date is the day you run payroll.)
• Regular Hours / Overtime Hours and Regular Pay / Overtime Pay / Commission Pay (and the month the commission is for).
• Tax fields: Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, Medicare Tax, Social Security Tax, Employer Taxes Paid, Employee Taxes Paid, Fed Unemployment Tax (FUTA), State Unemployment Tax (SUTA), and Total Other Deductions.
• Gross Pay (Regular + Overtime + Commission) and Net Pay (Gross Pay minus total taxes and other deductions). If you post to the General Journal, Net Pay matters: it is the amount that comes out of your bank account.
• Payment Method (required) and Check/Ref. Number.

Posting to the General Journal

Turn on Add Payroll Distribution To The General Journal to record the payroll automatically. Then choose:

• Fund (required) – the fund the payroll is drawn from.
• Bank Account Used for Payment (required) – the checking or asset account you pay from.

Argenta pre-selects the right payroll accounts from your Chart of Accounts and does the journal work for you. You can change the account numbers, but not the account names, because payroll postings are specific. Argenta records it like this:

• Payroll Expenses: Wages (Expense) – the employee's gross pay, drawn from the bank account above.
• Payroll Expenses: Taxes (Expense) – the employee's share of Medicare and Social Security.
• Payroll Taxes Payable: Federal (Liability) – the total federal taxes owed (federal income tax, all Medicare and Social Security, and FUTA).
• Payroll Taxes Payable: State (Liability) – the total state taxes owed (state income tax and SUTA).
• Payroll Taxes Payable: Other (Liability) – whatever you entered in Total Other Deductions, which is money held back from the employee and owed on to somebody else. This line is only added when Total Other Deductions is not zero.

When everything is filled in, click Save Changes & Exit to save the distribution and return to your list (or Save Changes & Continue to keep working on it).

Use the Payroll Files tab to attach a copy of the check or a time sheet (see Add Related Files), and the Payroll Notes tab to add notes (see Add A Note To The Notes Section).