Create a manual salary journal

Summary

Record details of wages, tax, national insurance contributions and other employee costs in Sage Accounting and Accounting Start.

Description

When you create the salary journal, you'll record details of your payroll, net wages, and money owed to Revenue for tax, PRSI and USC. Record these as liabilities on your balance sheet to show money owed by your business. Enter these as a Credit in your payroll journal.

The other half of the payroll journal records the costs to your business. These appear on the profit and loss report and you enter these as a Debit value.

Your liability clears when you record bank payments to pay your employees and Revenue.

If you subscribe to both Accounting and Payroll, you can also save time. Send salary details directly to Accounting when you complete your pay run.

Read our article Payroll and Accounting integration.

Resolution

We recommend that you complete your salary journals at the end of each pay period.

Before you start

From your payroll system, you'll need the following information for each pay period:

Total PAYE (income tax)
Total gross pay
Total net pay
Deductions and attachments
Employee pension contributions
Employee USC contributions
Employee PRSI contributions
Employer pension contributions, if applicable
Employer’s PRSI contributions
Local property tax deductions, if applicable

How to create the journal

From Adjustments, choose Journals, then New Journal.
NOTE: In Accounting Start, select More, choose Journals, then New Journal.
Enter the pay date for the relevant pay period.
Enter a reference and if required a description.
Enter the relevant amounts as debits and credits as shown in the following table.
Make sure you clear the Include on VAT return checkbox. This isn't on the VAT Return.

The following table shows the details of a salary journal:

▼Example of a salary journal

Ledger Account code	Ledger Account	Description	Debit	Credit
2210	PAYE/USC to pay to Revenue	Total tax deducted.		Credit
2220	PRSI to pay to the Revenue	Total of employee and employer PRSI contributions.		Credit
2270	Universal Social Charge	The total USC deducted.		Credit
2280	Local Property Tax (LPT)	If applicable, the total value of LPT.		Credit
2250	Net Wages	The total of the employees’ take-home pay.		Credit
2260	Pension	Total employee and employer contributions.		Credit
7000	Employee Wages and Salaries	The gross wages for all employees, not including statutory payments.	Debit
7020	Employers PRSI Contribution	The total employer PRSI contributions.	Debit
7030	Employer Pension	Total employer pension contributions.	Debit
7050	Other Deductions	If applicable, the total of remaining employee deductions.		Credit

Solution Properties

Solution ID: 222001000100726
Last Modified Date: Tue Apr 15 10:50:11 UTC 2025
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