17 free payroll templates (and when to use them)
As an accounting professional, the systems and processes you build to keep your firm running smoothly are crucial. And when accountants are departing the industry at lightning speed, the workload is only becoming heavier for their remaining peers.
For firms offering bookkeeping services to their clients, one of these key processes is payroll. Often tedious and complicated, the payroll service is critically important, especially for small business owners.
Here is a list of payroll workflow templates you can use to save time, streamline your processes, reduce manual inputs, and drive more client value.
You can directly download these as Microsoft Excel templates from the Karbon Template Library, or you can add them straight to Karbon. If you’re not already a Karbon customer, you’ll have the opportunity to start a free trial with your chosen template added.
What is a payroll template?
A payroll template is a standardized workflow designed to ensure the entire payroll process is completed on time, error-free, and consistently.
Payroll workflow templates will ensure you collect and process the following information:
Employee information: Names, addresses, contact information, employment dates, and identification numbers.
Employee pay and rates: Hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly pay rates for each employee, depending on their payment structure.
Work hours: Employee timesheets and total hours worked by each employee during the pay period, minus sick leave and other time off.
Payroll taxes and deductions: Payroll deductions, tax withholdings, social security, and other mandatory contributions.
Net pay: Final amount of pay each employee receives after deductions, plus payslips, paystubs, and other information.
Other payroll information: Reimbursements, payroll costs, payroll reports, and other payroll data relevant to your clients’ business needs.
Why are payroll templates necessary?
Without a standardized way to complete your clients’ payroll processes, you can never truly measure and improve your team’s productivity in this area of your service delivery.
Not only that, but without payroll templates, tasks slip through the cracks, communication is difficult, and deadlines are missed.
Payroll templates ensure:
Efficiency
Consistency and compliance
Accurate tax deductions and PTO calculations
And when your payroll templates utilize workflow automation, time savings translate into tangible results.
Recommended reading: Top accounting templates
17 free payroll templates for accounting and bookkeeping firms
Accounting firms often use a variety of payroll templates to cater to the diverse needs of their clients. Here are some of the most common types:
Payroll Processing template (global)
This best practice payroll processing template guides you through the key stages of running payroll.
Your payroll management stresses will reduce with this payroll processing template
It includes tasks for your clients to provide payroll timesheets, steps for you to process new employees, rate changes and time off requests, and reminders for processing payroll and following up with your clients.
It can be adapted to manage weekly, biweekly, or monthly payroll.
See this template in action.
Recommended reading: Payroll best practices checklist
Regional Payroll Processing templates
Here are templates from across the world, adapted specifically to process payroll in various countries.
Payroll Processing template (US)
Payroll Processing template (New Zealand)
Payroll Processing template (Australia)
Payroll Processing template (UK)
Payroll Processing Best Practices template
From data gathering and input to reporting and automating, this payroll processing template outlines the essentials for every step.
A preview of what the Payroll Processing Best Practice template looks like when used in Karbon
Payroll Setup template (global)
This payroll setup process leads to the ongoing payroll, quarterly tax filing processes, and periodic compliance processes.
Best practice workflow for setting up employee payroll in your chosen payroll software
Regional Payroll Setup templates
Find the right payroll setup template for your firm. These work templates use an automatic client email task to get the initial details from your client to start the setup process.
Payroll Setup (US)
Payroll Setup (New Zealand)
Payroll Setup (Australia)
Payroll Setup (UK)
Payroll Setup (Canada)
Payroll Setup in Intuit QuickBooks template
Simplify your payroll setup process with this specific workflow template designed to set up and manage the ongoing payroll using Intuit QuickBooks.
A preview of the Payroll Setup in Intuit QuickBooks template when used in Karbon
New Hire Onboarding for Payroll template
Seamlessly add your clients’ new hires to their payroll system with this streamlined workflow template.
A best practice general process for adding new hires to a payroll system
Terminating Employees in Payroll template
This template will guide through removing your clients’ ex-employees from payroll as part of the offboarding process.
A best practice general process for removing employees from a payroll system
Setting up a New Employee in Gusto template
Save time with this simple eight-step checklist to create a new employee in Gusto.
A preview of the Setting up a New Employee in Gusto template in Karbon
Wagepoint Payroll Processing template
This is a best practice process for handling payroll using Wagepoint. It should be used alongside Wagepoint to complete payroll for both salaried and hourly employees.
The Wagepoint Payroll Processing template helps you collect information like gross pay, hourly rates, employee name details, and other details required for payroll needs
Other payroll templates
Templates to streamline your bookkeeping
Many accounting and bookkeeping firms are saving hours using pre-created workflow templates:
BKL saves at least three days per month by using templated workflows
Tabworks has sped up their staff onboarding process
Leppert Group has streamlined their client onboarding and offboarding
Recommended reading: Bookkeeping services pricing guide
Here is a small selection of other common templates from the Karbon Template Library:
Monthly Accounting template
This is a best practice process for monthly accounting, including monthly bookkeeping essentials and month-end close processes.
👇 Download it for free
This template helps maintain accurate records of clients’ financial transactions, expenses, and income on a monthly basis.
It leverages Karbon’s Automators and Client Requests to help prepare, reconcile, review, and follow up with your clients about their monthly accounting information.
See this template in action.
Year-End Review template
This is a best practice process for year-end reviews. It assumes month-end close work has been completed previously, and doesn't include the completion of any tax work.
👇 Download it for free
Manage your year-end reviews with a dedicated and templated process
If you’re partnering with a CPA firm to manage year-end tax work, there is an additional section at the end to manage that interaction.
If not (or if you're doing it internally), you can remove the last section from the template. If you use the template in Karbon, you can add an Automator to the last section to mark the work completed once the tasks in the section are done.
Weekly Reconciliation template
This is a best practice process for weekly reconciliation (a sub-process of monthly bookkeeping).
It includes tasks for preparing accounts payable and expenses, bill pay, bank account reconciliation, credit card reconciliation, and client communication.
👇 Download it for free
If you use this template in Karbon, once it’s set up and personalized, you can set it to repeat on an automatic weekly recurring schedule.
See this template in action.
Accomplish more with Karbon templates
The Karbon Template Library houses over 250 workflow templates that are tailored to your region and service, sorted into common collections and workflow packs, like this Accounting Firm Starter Templates Collection. They're all ready to download and start using instantly.
Karbon templates include customizable statuses, checklists, workflow automation, job roles and work types. These allow you to document workflows to suit your firm, giving your staff the tools to set up detailed projects in seconds.
If you’re a Karbon customer, choose any template from the Karbon Template Library and have it instantly added to your account with one click. Complete with automators, client tasks, job roles, statuses, and all the other Karbon workflow functionality you’re used to.
If you don’t use Karbon yet, you can start a trial instantly with your chosen template added.
Or, if you’re not quite ready or want to use a different system, you don’t miss out. All templates are available to download as Excel spreadsheets to upload to Google Sheets or PDF process maps to use however you want.
Book a demo to learn more about Karbon.