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Plane builds journal entries from the accounting items you prepare. This page explains which transactions produce items, what lines each item contains, and how items combine into the journal entries you export.

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What creates an accounting item

Skipped payroll items and canceled payments don’t create accounting items.

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The lines in each item

Every item balances: its debits equal its credits. US employee payroll Employer of record payroll Earnings, reimbursements, taxes, and benefits are all debits, against a credit for the funds Plane debited. Contractor and vendor payments The payment amount is a debit to regular earnings and any reimbursement is a debit to the Other reimbursement category, against a credit for the funds Plane debited. Contractors paid through payroll use the full contractor earnings categories. Plane invoices and refunds Your subscription is a debit to the Plane subscription mapping. A refund is a debit back to your bank account.

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How items become journal entries

When you prepare an item, Plane adds it to the journal entries for its month.
  • One journal entry per funding charge. Everything a charge paid for, such as a whole payroll run, lands in one journal entry, so each entry matches a transaction in your bank feed.
  • Lines are summarized by account and reporting category, not listed per person. Plane combines lines that share an account, a reporting category, and a side (debit or credit). For payroll and payment lines, the description lists the amounts each line combines by name:
  • The bank line stays whole. The funds-debited credit is never split by reporting category, so it matches the debits on your bank statement. If you add department rules to your bank account mapping, a payroll gets one bank line per bank account instead.
  • Journal entries balance once complete. While some items paid by a charge are still in To prepare, that charge’s entry shows the full bank amount and won’t balance until the rest are prepared.

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Dates, numbers, and memos

Posting date. By default, each item is dated by the end of its pay period, and payments without a period use the payment date. You can date items by the charge date instead with the accounting.grouping workspace preference. With the default, annual subscription invoices use the invoice date. EOR deposits and other invoices always use the invoice date, and refunds and direct charges always use the charge date. A journal entry takes the latest date among its items. Number. Journal entries are numbered Plane 1, Plane 2, and so on, in the order Plane builds them for your workspace. Memo. The memo names the transaction type, such as Employee US Payroll, Contractor Payroll, Contractor Payment, Plane subscription, or EOR deposit. Currency. Journal entries are recorded in US dollars.

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Example

Say April includes a US payroll for two employees and a one-time payment to a contractor.
  • Maya, in Sales, earns $8,000. Sam, in Engineering, earns $6,000.
  • Employer taxes are $1,071: $868 of Social Security and $203 of Medicare.
  • Medical coverage costs $800: a $500 employer contribution and $300 of pre-tax employee deductions, both owed to the insurer.
  • The contractor is paid $5,000 on April 15, with no pay period.
Plane builds two journal entries. Plane 41: Employee US Payroll, April 30 The bank line is what Plane debited from your account: The 800.00 owed to the insurer stays in Benefits payable until you pay it. Plane 42: Contractor Payment, April 15 With reporting categories turned on, each payroll line except the bank credit splits in two: Maya’s share tagged Sales and Sam’s tagged Engineering.

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Exporting

When your items are in Ready to export, open the period’s journal entries and click Export all entries to post them to QuickBooks Online. Items move to Exported only once every journal entry has posted. If QuickBooks rejects an entry or the connection has expired, the export stays ready to retry.

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Supporting detail for each journal entry

Journal entries are summarized, so you’ll want the detail behind them when you review, reconcile, or close the books. The journal entries screen gives you two downloads.
  • Statement PDF. A record of the period’s prepared and exported journal entries, with total debits and credits. Each journal entry is broken down by worker when that fits on about a page, which is 40 rows or fewer. Larger entries, such as a big payroll run, are summarized by account and reporting category instead, so the statement stays readable. Items still in To prepare are left out, and the statement says how many.
  • CSV or Excel. Every journal entry line, from the Download menu, with these columns: Journal entry ID, Date, Number, Memo, Account, Description, Reporting category, Debit, Credit, and Currency. For payroll and payment lines, the description lists the amounts each line combines.