Payroll Hub

Run payroll in whichever provider you already trust, then drop the CSV into Kantivo and get a balanced journal entry posted to your books in seconds.

Overview

Kantivo doesn't try to be your payroll provider — it's accounting software, not a tax-filing service. What it does instead is talk fluently to the providers who already do payroll well. Run payroll wherever you run it; export the journal as CSV; let Kantivo turn it into clean double-entry accounting.

The flow:

1. Hit Run Payroll — your provider's site opens in a new tab
2. Process payroll there as you always do
3. Export the payroll journal as a CSV
4. Back in Kantivo, click Import Journal Entry
5. Upload the file — balanced entries post to your ledger automatically

Choosing Your Provider

1. Click Payroll in the sidebar
2. Use the Your Payroll Provider dropdown at the top of the hub
3. Pick your provider (Gusto, ADP, Patriot, OnPay, etc.) or Other / Custom
4. Kantivo remembers the choice — no need to set it again

Each company in Kantivo can use a different payroll provider. If you run payroll across multiple entities, set the provider per company.

Running Payroll

1. Click the Run Payroll in [Provider] card on the hub
2. Your provider's page opens in a new browser tab — log in and run payroll as usual
3. When you're done, export the payroll journal or payroll summary as CSV
4. Come back to Kantivo to import

Importing the Journal

1. Click Import Journal Entry on the Payroll Hub
2. Pick your provider from the cards — Kantivo uses this to auto-detect columns
3. Upload the CSV (drag-and-drop or file browser)
4. Click Upload & Detect Columns
5. Review the auto-mapped columns and adjust anything that's wrong
6. Enter the pay period and payment date
7. Click Preview Journal Entries to see the proposed double-entry transaction
8. Sanity-check the summary (employee count, gross wages, taxes, net pay) — confirm debits = credits
9. Click Post Journal Entries

Quick Re-Import

After your first import with a saved template, a Quick Re-Import shortcut appears on the Payroll Hub. Click it to:

• Skip straight to the upload step
• Auto-load your last-used template
• Bypass provider selection

Net result: biweekly or monthly payroll imports become a 30-second job.

Supported Providers

Pre-built templates ship with Kantivo for these providers:

Provider not listed? Pick Other / CSV. Kantivo will auto-detect common column names; whatever it doesn't catch, you map manually once and save as a reusable template.

Payroll Overview

Payroll opens on an overview rather than a file picker. At the top you get the year so far: gross wages, net paid out, employer taxes, and the total cost of payroll. Below that sit your most recent run and your payroll liability balances.

The liability figures are read live from your chart of accounts. They are not an estimate reconstructed from imports, so they fall as you pay the deposits, and if your chart has no payroll liability accounts Kantivo says so instead of showing a zero that means nothing.

Paying Liabilities

Knowing you owe $4,182 is only half the job. Click Pay Liabilities and every payroll liability account with a balance is listed, each defaulting to the full amount owed.

Change any figure for a partial payment, untick anything you are not paying yet, choose the account the money leaves from, and add the payee and confirmation number. Kantivo debits each liability and credits the bank in one entry.

Employee Year-to-Date

Each import records what every person earned, so Employee year-to-date shows gross, federal, state, Social Security, Medicare and net for each employee across the year, with totals.

This is the figure to check your provider's W-2s against before they go out. A small warning triangle beside a name means the name on the payroll file did not match an employee record — the money is still counted, but the two records are not linked.

Payroll Reports

Two reports open from the overview. The Wage & Tax Summary gives one row per employee for the period with every tax and deduction broken out. The Payroll Register works through the year run by run, listing the employee lines beneath each and marking any run with no journal entry attached.

Withholding Posted to Sales Tax

Newer versions pick accounts by what they are for rather than by number, so this cannot recur. For books already affected, the banner offers to put it right.

The correction is a reclassifying journal entry dated today, not an edit of your old entries. That matters: sales tax gets filed with a state, periods get locked, and entries get reconciled — rewriting history would leave your books disagreeing with all three. You see exactly which entries are involved and the total before anything is posted, the entry is refused if it would fall inside a locked period, and running it a second time does nothing.

Journal Entry Structure

Every payroll import becomes a balanced journal entry. A typical post looks like:

Kantivo maps your CSV columns to the right debit/credit accounts automatically and won't let you post if debits don't equal credits.

Saved Templates

• Save — tick "Save as template" during import and give it a name
• Use — pick it from the Saved Templates dropdown before uploading
• Delete — remove custom templates in the import wizard. Default provider templates are read-only.

Templates store the column-to-field mapping so you don't remap every pay run. Each company can carry multiple templates if you use multiple providers or export formats.

FAQ

Why doesn't Kantivo run payroll itself?

Payroll is a different product entirely — tax tables, filings, multi-state compliance, year-end forms. Gusto, ADP, and Patriot specialize in it. Kantivo's job is to be the cleanest, most affordable accounting layer, then talk fluently to the payroll experts. You get best-in-class on both sides instead of compromise on either.

What if my provider isn't in the list?

Any provider that can export to CSV (or Excel) works. Pick Other / CSV, map the columns once, save as a template.

My CSV columns don't match what got auto-detected. Now what?

Override any mapping in Step 2 of the wizard — each field has a dropdown listing all the columns in your file. Save the corrected mapping as a template and you're done forever.

How often should I import?

After every pay run — weekly, biweekly, or monthly. With Quick Re-Import wired up, it's a 30-second task.

What payroll accounts does Kantivo set up?

New companies get these accounts created automatically:

• 2200 Payroll Taxes Payable — withheld employee taxes
• 2300 Benefits Payable — withheld benefit deductions
• 6600 Wages Expense — gross wages
• 6700 Payroll Tax Expense — employer-side taxes
• 6800 Employee Benefits Expense — employer benefit contributions

Can different companies use different providers?

Yes. The provider selection lives per company, and so do the saved templates.

Employee Documents

HR documents live on the employee record where they belong — not in scattered folders or email threads.

Uploading

1. Open an employee profile → Documents tab
2. Pick a category (W-4, I-9, Offer Letter, Contract, ID/Passport, Certification, Performance Review, Disciplinary, Other)
3. Click Upload File and choose the file
4. It's saved instantly and appears in the list

Accepted Formats

PDF, PNG, JPG, GIF, Word (.doc/.docx), Excel (.xls/.xlsx), CSV, and plain text. Up to 15 MB per file.

Download & Delete

Click the download icon to grab a copy. Click the trash icon to delete permanently. Be careful with compliance-required documents like W-4s and I-9s — deletes are not recoverable.

Categories

• W-4 / I-9 — withholding and employment eligibility
• Offer Letter / Contract — hiring agreements
• ID / Passport — government-issued ID copies
• Certification — licenses, training records, credentials
• Performance Review / Disciplinary — internal records
• Other — anything else relevant to the employee