The Manual Payroll Import is a key part of your monthly accounting tasks. It records gross wages, employer-paid taxes, and bank withdrawals in Inn-Flow. These entries affect the operating statement (your profit-and-loss report), the balance sheet, and the bank reconciliation, so the import must be completed consistently to keep your books on track.
Every payroll import balances to this formula: Gross Wages + Employer Taxes - Deductions - Employee & Employer Taxes = Amount Withdrawn from the Bank.
Gather Your Payroll Data
Before you start, find a payroll report – Excel is preferred – that contains all of the following:
Gross wages by position (not by department)
Employer taxes
Deductions and garnishments
Employee taxes
Amounts withdrawn from the bank (direct deposits, live checks, delayed taxes, benefits)
This information usually appears in a report called the Payroll Register, Payroll Details, or Payroll Requirements. Ask your payroll representative if you need help locating it.
Download the Import Template
Navigate to Accounting, then Payroll Import. Open the triple-dot menu (...) in the top-right of the page and select Download Template.
Complete the Template
Fill in the template using the column headers below:
Column | What to enter |
Date | The last date of the pay cycle. For a 1/13 - 1/26 cycle, enter 1/26/2024. |
ActPer | Accounting Period – the month the wages appear on the operating statement. For the example above, use 1/1/2024 since the wages are for January. If a pay cycle spans two months (for example 1/27 - 2/9), use the accounting period of the last day, so 2/1/2024. |
Vendor | Payroll, or your payroll provider. You must set this vendor up before importing. |
EHID | The Inn-Flow Entity ID for the property that incurred the expense. |
COA | The Chart of Account (COA) – the specific general-ledger account – for the expense. |
CkNo | Check Number, or ACH if paid as a withdrawal. Rows with a CkNo post a withdrawal to the bank account. Use CkNo in the bottom half of the entry: expense the gross wages first, then enter the bank amounts. Do not enter a CkNo for wage accounts like Front Desk or Housekeeping. |
Description | Additional information about the expense. This becomes your GL description when you drill down on reports. |
Payment | The amount to expense or post to the Chart of Account. |
Using your payroll report, enter the gross wages for each position: put the COA in column E, the position name in column G (Description), and the amount in column H.
A sample import template is attached to the article. The first tab shows exactly what the import must look like – no data past column H. The second tab shows how to code taxes by position to a department tax account (Rooms Taxes, A&G Taxes, etc.). The import only reads the first tab.
Import the Completed Template
1. Navigate to Accounting, then Payroll Import.
2. Select the HID (hotel) you are importing for.
3. Click New Import and drag and drop your file into the box.
Once the file imports successfully, the transactions appear on the register of the account set in Entities. For more on that setting, see the article What are Payroll Import Settings?
IF PRO TIP: If you get an error when uploading a payroll import template, try these steps: download a fresh template from the triple-dot menu, then copy and paste your data into it and try again; confirm you have not changed any of the template headers; and check that the Date and ActPer columns are formatted MM/DD/YY and the Payment column is formatted as Numbers.