Lesson 3.3: Chart of Accounts Integration

The key to proper segregation of your financial activity by funds, functional areas, programs, and funding sources lies in your Chart of Accounts. Because FastFund Payroll seamlessly integrates with FastFund Accounting, your payroll and accounting data reside in a single, unified database. This automatic integration completely eliminates the need for separate data exports, imports, and manual journal entries.

However, because the systems are linked, FastFund Accounting must be set up first. FastFund Payroll relies on your accounting system’s general ledger to allocate employee salaries and related payroll taxes accurately.

[INSERT SCREENSHOT: A view of the Chart of Accounts list in FastFund Accounting, highlighting the different account segments such as Funds, Cost Centers, and Object Codes]

Understanding the Account Structure FastFund uses a highly flexible, table-driven account structure. The Chart of Accounts is user-defined and allows you to set up to six separate segments to mirror your organization’s exact reporting requirements. These segments represent:

• Funds: To separate restricted, temporarily restricted, and unrestricted net assets.
• Cost Centers (Up to 3): Used for tracking functional areas, programs, funding sources, grants, sites, and departments.
• Object Codes: To define your core assets, liabilities, net assets, revenue, and expenses.
• Sub-Accounts: For further granularity within your object codes.

Required Payroll General Ledger Accounts Before you can configure your payroll tax defaults and employee salary distributions, you must ensure that your accounting team has fully established the necessary accounts in the general ledger. You will need:

• Gross Salary Accounts: Expense accounts for posting employee gross wages.
• Payroll Tax Expense Accounts: Expense accounts for the employer’s portion of taxes, including Social Security, Medicare, State Unemployment (SUTA), Federal Unemployment (FUTA), and any required state supplemental taxes.
• Payroll Tax Withholding Accounts: Liability accounts used to hold the funds deducted from employees until paid, including Federal Income Tax (FIT), Social Security, Medicare, State Income Tax (SIT), and local taxes.
• Other Withholding and Expense Accounts: Liability and expense accounts for managing other master adjustments, such as health insurance deductions, retirement contributions, and other income.

[INSERT SCREENSHOT: The ‘Other Names’ entity data entry screen in FastFund Accounting showing a tax payee setup, such as the US Treasury]

Setting Up Tax Payees (Other Names) In addition to your general ledger accounts, you must also set up the specific payees that will receive your payroll tax liability payments. Because these government agencies are not standard vendors or clients, they must be entered into the Other Names entity table in FastFund Accounting. You will need to create records for:

• The US Treasury or Internal Revenue Service (for federal taxes).
• Your specific State Taxing Authorities (for state income and unemployment taxes).
• Your specific Local Taxing Authorities (for city or county local taxes, if applicable).