GnuCash employees as vendors for tracking of payroll transactions?

[Jenny Redden]

Hi, we are a small Non-Profit Organisation in Laos that has just started
using GnuCash as our financial management information system.

We have around 8 employees.  We pay net salaries monthly to our staff
(gross amount is charged to Expense - Payroll), and also need to accumulate
liabilities for Personal Income Tax (PIT, that we pay directly to the Tax
Department on a quarterly basis) and a Pension Liability (that we transfer
to a separate bank account on a quarterly basis)

I've found the information on split transactions for payroll and have done
some successful test transactions using this method.  It could work for
us.  However, I've also found some advice about listing all employees as
Vendors in Gnucash to enable better reporting on payroll transactions at
the individual employee level.  This of course was much more complicated
that the split transaction for payroll.

Using Employee=Vendor method....it seems that the process is as follows:

1. New vendor
2. New bill (gross salary amount including tax and pension, charged to
Expense: Payroll Expenses)
3. Post the bill to an A/c holding account (now the bill is called an
Invoice)
3. Process Payment/Pay Invoice using 3 transactions, net salary paid to
employee from Bank Account, Tax 'paid' into a Liability:Tax a/c and finally
Pension 'paid' into a Liability: Pension A/c

This Employee-Vendor-Invoice method allows me to easily generate a Report
for each 'vendor' (employee) showing all the payroll transactions made in
their name.

Of course the first time is the most complicated as for further payroll
transactions in future months it is possible to 'duplicate' the bill,
change a few key details in the memo and notes fields (such as the
month), then Post & Process.

Am I doing this the correct way?  Do others GnuCash Users use different
methods for payroll transactions?  Does anyone have a 'Cheat Sheet' that
explains the process they use that they could share?

Mr Mark Holtzman The Accountinator......where are you?  Your short tutorial
vidoes on You Tube have been a great help for us but we need more
instalments :)