Payroll, Chart of Accounts & QuickBooks Settings
Where pay frequency, check numbering, and payroll approvals actually live, plus GL coding in Chart of accounts and QuickBooks account mapping
There is no "Payroll Setup" tab in Greenroom
The current Settings tabs are Me, Company, Chart of accounts, QuickBooks, Team, and Activity (plus a Pricing tab visible only to Greenroom staff) — there's no tab called "Payroll Setup," and there's no pay-period picker (Weekly / Bi-Weekly / Semi-Monthly / Monthly / Custom) anywhere in Settings. What this page used to describe is now split across three real places, all covered below: Settings → Company (pay frequency, check numbering, payroll approvals), Settings → Chart of accounts (GL coding), and Settings → QuickBooks (account mapping for the QuickBooks package).
Pay frequency, check numbering, and payroll approvals
These now live on the Company tab, not a separate payroll page:
- Pay frequency and Check start number are on the Banking & checks card.
- Payroll approvals (the two-person sign-off control for submitting a run) is its own card.
Full field-by-field detail is in Company Settings — including the important caveat that pay frequency here doesn't change Greenroom's own processing cadence (it always processes weekly) and that the banking fields are display-only, not a live bank connection.
Chart of accounts
Go to Settings → Chart of accounts to manage your GL (general ledger) codes — what used to be called "cost codes." This catalog drives your payroll coding summary and, together with the account mapping below, the QuickBooks package, so every payroll line lands in the right bucket.
Adding and editing codes
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Code | Letters, numbers, dots, and dashes only (e.g., 4310). 12 characters max. |
| Name | A plain description (e.g., "AEA performance wages"). 80 characters max. |
| Category | One of Wages, Fees & services, or Taxes & fringe. |
Click Add code to insert a new row inline, edit any existing row directly in the table, then save. Every row you've touched — new and edited — saves together from one save bar at the bottom; nothing commits until you click Save there.
Deleting a code asks for confirmation first. Past payroll lines that already used that code keep their coding — deleting only stops the code from being used on new lines going forward.
Importing codes from a spreadsheet
Instead of entering codes one at a time, click Import CSV / Excel (a Template button next to it downloads a starter file). Accepts .csv or .xlsx, up to 256 KB and 1,000 rows per file.
Every import previews before anything saves — you'll see a table of every row with a verdict:
| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Will add | A brand-new code |
| Updates existing | Matches a code you already have; shows exactly which fields (name and/or category) would change |
| Duplicate in file | The same code appears more than once in your spreadsheet |
| Invalid code / Name too long / Unknown category / Missing code or name | That row needs fixing before anything imports |
Nothing imports until every row is clean — fix the file and re-upload rather than trying to import the good rows only. For the Category column, Greenroom accepts "Wages," "Fees" (or "Fees & services"), and "Taxes & fringe" (or "Taxes and fringe") — not case-sensitive.
QuickBooks account mapping
Go to Settings → QuickBooks to map your payroll categories — clearing, employee withholding, employer payroll tax, union dues and benefits, deductions, representative fees, GL-coded expenses, and so on — onto real account names from your QuickBooks Desktop file. This is a separate, more granular mapping than Chart of accounts above: it's what the QuickBooks package (QBD) report uses to generate a correctly-coded journal entry and settlement batch, and generation is blocked until every category your production has actually used is mapped and confirmed here.
The table's first column is labelled Payroll amount — it lists the payroll figures needing an account, not accounting categories you define. A row Greenroom knows about but that nothing on your payrolls has produced yet carries a Not observed badge rather than asking you to map something that doesn't apply. Withholding rows are listed by jurisdiction (Federal, NY, NYC) from the tax lines your runs have actually carried — a fix from 2026-08-29; before that the list badged Federal and NY as not observed while counting a phantom "other" jurisdiction as required. If yours still looks like that, click Seed from payroll history again.
A handful of structural categories — clearing, the standard tax jurisdictions, employer tax — arrive pre-confirmed with sensible defaults so a new production isn't blocked immediately. Everything else (union funds, GL-coded expenses, representative fees) arrives as an unconfirmed suggestion the first time Greenroom sees it; you have to explicitly Confirm each one, or Edit it first if the suggested account name is wrong. Seed from payroll history pulls in every category your runs have used so far. You can also Upload CoA — a .csv or .xlsx export from QuickBooks Desktop — to fill in real account names in bulk instead of typing them one at a time; Greenroom matches uploaded names against your existing rows and previews every match before applying anything.
See QuickBooks Package (QBD) for the full field-by-field detail and how the mapping feeds package generation.
Next Steps
See Company Settings for the fields that moved off this page, QuickBooks Package (QBD) for what the account mapping produces, Team for who has access to your company, or continue to Running Payroll to process payroll.