Match Payroll to QuickBooks

The payroll register provides employee detail. QuickBooks provides the accounting expense. Matching them proves which accounting lines the employee-level report represents.

GrantLink’s current payroll reconciliation is read-only. It does not create or edit a QuickBooks journal entry.

Ask GrantLink to Match a Run

1. Connect and sync the correct QuickBooks company.
2. Open Allocations → Payroll → Report and choose the pay-date range.
3. If the report says the runs need QuickBooks matching, choose Resolve QuickBooks matching.
4. The assistant identifies each unmatched imported run and searches for the exact QuickBooks expense lines that support its imported earnings.
5. Review the proposed lines and any difference before confirming the match.

The assistant should use exact transaction and line identities. It must not use net pay, a bank withdrawal, or the $0 header total of a balanced journal entry as payroll expense.

What Must Reconcile

For the supported scope, the selected QuickBooks expense lines must form a complete match for the imported payroll run. If the lines are missing, incomplete, changed, deleted, or in the wrong company, the payroll report remains Working.

One QuickBooks line cannot support two active payroll runs. A line already represented by an aggregate GrantLink transaction allocation cannot also be claimed by employee-level payroll. This prevents the same economic cost from appearing twice.

The reviewed line selection replaces the run's previous selection. Ask GrantLink to submit an empty selection to clear a mistaken match. If the selection changed since it was read, GrantLink rejects the stale request and asks you to review the current match. Earlier selections remain in history rather than being rewritten.

Employee-Level Payroll or Aggregate Splitting?

Use employee-level payroll when you need named employee support, Initiative evidence, employee-by-grant reporting, and correction lineage.

Keep using transaction splitting when an upstream payroll or QuickBooks workflow already provides an adequate aggregate grant split and employee detail is not required. Do not use both approaches for the same expense line.

What Matching Does Not Do

Matching does not:

• change QuickBooks;
• post a payroll reclassification;
• alter paychecks, cash, taxes, deductions, or liabilities;
• prove that a cost is allowable under an award; or
• resolve a mismatch by inventing an accounting line.

There is currently no visual QuickBooks line picker or payroll journal-entry creation flow. Use chat for the supported read-only matching. If the source accounting is wrong, work with your bookkeeper, payroll provider, or accountant before relying on the report.