Accounting Integration: Customer Guide

Last updated: January 18, 2026

Use this guide to enable, configure, validate, and export payroll to your accounting system.

What you’ll achieve

  • Connect ATB Payroll to your accounting system (QuickBooks Online or Xero)

  • Import your chart of accounts as Accounting Codes (GL Codes)

  • Map payroll items using Presets and Fallbacks

  • Export paid payrolls to your ledger as two journal entries (accrual entry and payment entry)

  • Reconcile, report, and troubleshoot with confidence

Before you start

Make sure to have an active chart of accounts somewhere

Key Terminology:

Accounting Codes = GL accounts you post to

Preset = a saved mapping for a payroll item type

Fallback = a default mapping used when no preset is present

Step 1 — Connect your accounting system

  1. In ATB Payroll, go to Settings → Integrations

  2. Choose QuickBooks Online or Xero and click “Connect”

  3. Sign in and approve access

  4. You’ll return to ATB Payroll with your accounting platform successfully connected

Notes: Only one provider can be connected at a time. If you later disconnect, your imported Accounting Codes will remain available in ATB Payroll

Step 2 — Import your chart of accounts

  • Click “Import Accounts” to pull your latest accounts

  • Accounts are stored by provider ID to keep mappings stable, even if code numbers change

  • If you’ve made changes in your accounting system, you can re-import anytime

Notes: You can only import accounts that are of type: liability, expense and bank

Step 3 — Set required base accounts (once)

Once you’ve imported your accounts, you would first need to map your “Bank Account” and “Net Payroll Payable”

  • Bank account: the cash account used for payroll payments

  • Net Payroll Payable: the liability account used to hold net pay and withholdings until paid

Step 4 — Map your payroll items

You then need to map the rest of your imported accounts to payroll items at ATB Payroll. These can be mapped using:

  • Presets: when creating presets, map specific payroll items to imported Expense and Liability accounts

    • eg: Cell Phone Allowance mapped to Bell Mobile Expense - 7128

    • Statutory withholdings presets are auto‑generated for every employee and employer subtype, including province‑specific WCB and Québec HSF where applicable

    • Presets you edit affect future payrolls; approved payrolls keep their existing mappings

  • Fallbacks: default mappings applied when the line item does not have a specific accounting code coming from a preset.

    Setting this ensures that all line items are captured in journal entries. They are useful for items that don’t originate from a preset, like overtime, stat holiday pay, vacation pay, etc.

    • eg: overtime earning has not defined expense code mapped to it will fallback to Overtime Expense - 3310

Recommended approach:

  • Create presets where you need reporting detail

  • Define broad fallbacks for earnings buckets like salary, wages, bonuses to avoid gaps in journal entry reports

Validation rule of thumb:

  • Every line item must resolve to either a preset or a fallback before export

Step 5 — Test with a sample pay run

  • Run a test payroll (ideally in sandbox)

  • Fix any unmapped categories flagged in ATB Payroll before exporting

  • Review totals by account and any dimensions you use (departments, projects)

Step 6 — Export a pay run

  1. Approve the pay run

  2. Click Export to QuickBooks, or Xero

  3. Open your accounting system and verify journals

Important: Export is available for paid payrolls only, not drafts or un‑paid approvals

What gets created:

  • Two journal entries per pay run:

    • Record Payroll: debits wages and employer expenses, credits statutory withholdings and net payroll payable

    • Pay Payroll: clears payroll payable to bank when the payment is recorded

  • Line item details:

    • To preserve detail, statutory deductions post as separate lines even if they are mapped to the same account

Reconciliation and reporting

  • Match the Pay Payroll journal to your bank transaction

  • Compare the Record Payroll journal totals to your pay run

  • If you use departments or projects, validate those appear as expected in your ledger

  • Journal Entry Report (JER) in ATB Payroll respects presets and fallbacks for reporting

Troubleshooting

  • Error: “All presets must have accounting codes before exporting”

    • Ensure each business preset used by the pay run has both an Expense and a Liability account selected

  • Missing mapping on export

    • Add a preset or a fallback for the flagged category, then export again

    • The easiest way to figure out what hasn't been mapped when you keep getting an error while running payroll, is to download a journal entry report

  • Wrong account used

    • Update the preset, reverse or void the journal in your accounting system, then re‑export

  • Duplicate journals

    • Void the duplicate in your accounting system and export once

  • Connection issues

    • Reconnect in Settings and re‑import accounts

FAQs

  • Do I need to map everything?

    • No. Use fallbacks to cover broad categories; add presets where detail matters most

    • Alerts will guide you to fix unmapped presets before export; payroll itself is not blocked

  • Why two journals?

    • One records payroll expense and liabilities; the second clears payroll payable with the bank payment

  • Can I switch providers or disconnect?

    • You can disconnect; imported codes remain. Switching accounting providers is supported but only one can be active at a time

  • Do presets auto‑apply?

    • System presets are generated for statutory items, but mappings are applied to new line items and via fallbacks where applicable. Approved payrolls do not retro‑update