Payroll liabilities report does not match General Ledger

Go for it.

Wait for a sign above.

When you pay payroll liabilities, you may need to do it by using a "laibility check" rather than a regular check.

The QB payroll system keeps track of the payroll liabilities separately from the chart of accounts. Paying by a regular check does not adjust the payroll liabilities in the payroll system.

Also, journal entries do not change the payroll liability report and can cause differences between the chart of accounts and the payroll liabilities report.

Don't know what kind of payroll service you are using.

You may need to get someone who understands this in QB to check it out, or dig into the payroll services manual.

But if you do as you suggest, it may work fine. If you can't make it come out right, then get help. You can always keep track of what you do and reverse it if needed.

GC

I'm not one to just do entries because there are balances that need correcting.....

The Payroll Adjustment part of your suggestion is probably correct but you should first determine WHY the adjustment needs to be done before you do it. Ditto with the GL entry that you propose.

I would run Payroll Liability report for last year. Display the report by quarter to see when the balance occured. Chances are the rate charged by the state changed on the forms but was not corrected in QB for the entire quarter. You should be able to see the change on the forms filed with the state.

As for the GL adjustment, I would run a Transaction detail report on that account and look for non payroll transaction are hitting that account. That will help you determine what the offsetting account to use on the correcting entry.