Payroll
Payroll journals and reconciliations
Finbryn records the payroll journal entry for every Canadian pay run and reconciles it against the payroll platform's own report, so gross wages, CPP, EI and income tax withholdings agree with your general ledger, done under ASPE or IFRS where your books follow either.
Payroll reconciliation
Illustrative client · August 2026
CAD
- Payroll register agreed to the provider reportDone
- Net pay agreed to the bank debitDone
- Withholdings and employer costs postedDone
- Payroll liability accounts cleared to zeroIn progress
- Filing dates checked against the calendarNext
Illustrative. An example of the document, not a client's figures.
Why a bank feed is not enough
A bank feed shows one payment leaving your account on payday. It does not show the gross wages behind it, the CPP and EI withheld from each employee, the income tax deducted, or the employer's own matching contributions. Recording payroll properly means breaking that single bank line into every account it actually touches, then checking the result against the payroll platform's own summary.
What the entry includes
Each pay period we record gross wages, employee CPP, EI and income tax withholdings, the employer's matching CPP and EI contributions, any benefit deductions, and the net pay clearing entry that ties back to what actually left the bank account. Under ASPE or IFRS, where your books run on accrual, wages earned but not yet paid at month end are accrued so the income statement reflects the period the work was done in.
Reconciling the liability accounts
Source deduction liability accounts get reconciled monthly against the payroll platform's remittance summary, and any payroll clearing account is checked back to zero once a run has fully cleared the bank. A mismatch usually traces back to something upstream, such as a rate table that changed in the platform but not on paper, or a benefit deduction still expensed after it stopped.
Provincial variation
Because provincial income tax rates differ and Quebec runs its own parallel system, the reconciliation checks that the right rate table was applied to each employee, not just that the total looks reasonable.
Where this fits
This service assumes payroll itself runs through a platform such as QuickBooks Online, Xero or Sage 50; see payroll source deductions for the pay-run review that comes before these entries are posted.
Questions
Frequently asked questions: Payroll journals and reconciliations
Why doesn't the bank feed just handle this automatically?
A bank feed only shows the net amount that left your account. It cannot split that into gross wages, CPP, EI and income tax withholdings, which is what the journal entry and reconciliation are for.
Do you need administrator access to our payroll platform?
Read-only reporting access is usually enough to pull the summary reports we reconcile against. We do not need access to run pay ourselves.
How often are payroll liability accounts reconciled?
Monthly, alongside your regular close, so a mismatch is caught before it compounds across several pay periods.
What exactly is included in payroll journals and reconciliations?
Payroll journal entries recorded in your accounting software for every pay run, and gross wages, withholdings and net pay reconciled against the payroll platform's summary report. This work runs inside QuickBooks Online or Xero, whichever your business already has in place, and it rolls into your regular monthly close rather than sitting off to the side as a separate, unreconciled process.
What happens to our payroll journals and reconciliations records if we switch providers?
Everything stays inside your own QuickBooks Online or Xero account, so the full history transfers with the subscription, not with Finbryn. You can hand payroll journals and reconciliations to another provider or bring it in-house at any point without losing a reconciliation or having to rebuild the file first.
Why does payroll need its own reconciliation separate from bookkeeping?
Payroll moves money and creates liabilities in ways a bank feed alone does not explain. A dedicated reconciliation catches mismatches between what was paid, what was withheld and what the ledger shows.
Do you need access to our payroll platform?
Read-only reporting access is usually enough. We do not need the access level required to run pay runs ourselves.
Who reviews the work before it reaches us?
Every deliverable under payroll journals and reconciliations is reviewed by a senior reviewer before it reaches you. You keep access to the underlying file at every stage, so nothing about the work happens somewhere you cannot see it.
What is included in payroll journals and reconciliations?
Payroll journals and reconciliations covers payroll journal entries recorded in your accounting software for every pay run and gross wages, withholdings and net pay reconciled against the payroll platform's summary report. The exact scope is agreed and set out in writing before work starts, so you know precisely what is and is not covered before the first deliverable arrives.
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Next step
Talk to the team that would run your books
A short call covers your setup, your software and what a first month would look like. You get a written scope and price after it.