Justworks Integration: Setup and Sync
Connect Justworks to DualEntry so each payroll run posts to your ledger as a single consolidated journal entry. The connection runs through DualEntry’s payroll-data provider, which handles authentication with Justworks on your behalf. Data flows one way: Justworks to DualEntry. The integration consolidates every employee’s pay statement for a payroll run into one journal entry per payment, with lines for earnings, taxes, employee deductions, and employer contributions.
Prerequisites
Confirm the following before connecting Justworks:
- Admin access to both your DualEntry and Justworks accounts.
- Your chart of accounts in DualEntry includes the GL accounts you intend to use for payroll expense, tax expense, employee and employer benefit accounts, and a payroll clearing or accrued-payroll account.
- A vendor record in DualEntry to use as the payroll vendor (typically named “Justworks”).
- A single DualEntry company that the Justworks data should post to. Consolidated payroll runs in single-entity mode only (see Current limitations).
- Optionally, a classification (such as Department) configured in DualEntry if you want pay statement items split by department on the journal entry.
How to connect
DualEntry connects to Justworks through a hosted Connect widget, so you do not generate API keys or paste credentials into DualEntry. The payroll-data provider handles authentication and returns an access token to DualEntry.
- In DualEntry, navigate to Company → Integrations → Justworks.
- Choose Connect. DualEntry opens the Connect widget in a new window.
- In the widget, choose Justworks and sign in with your Justworks admin credentials.
- Approve the data scopes requested on DualEntry’s behalf.
- After approval, the provider redirects back to DualEntry and the integration shows as Connected.
The first sync after a fresh connection pulls only metadata (companies, payroll vendor, pay statement items, departments) so you can finish mapping before any journal entries are written. Pay statements sync once every required mapping is complete.
If the connection later shows a reauth or permissions status, the Justworks authorization needs to be renewed. Reconnect from the same screen to re-run the Connect flow against the existing connection rather than creating a duplicate.
What syncs
The integration pulls the following Justworks data into DualEntry on each sync run. Justworks is the system of record; DualEntry ingests this data and does not push anything back.
| Justworks data | DualEntry record | Notes |
|---|
| Companies | company mapping | One Justworks company maps to one DualEntry company in single-entity mode. |
| Payroll vendor | vendor mapping | One vendor (typically named “Justworks”) stamped on every payroll journal entry line. |
| Pay statement items | pay_statement_item to account mapping | Earnings, taxes, employee deductions, and employer contributions. Each unique item must map to a GL account. |
| Departments | classification line | Mapped to a configurable classification (default name: Department). Used to split journal entry lines by department and tag each line with the relevant classification in DualEntry. |
| Payments | payment record | Reference data; one consolidated journal entry is created per payment. |
| Pay statements | pay_statement record | Per-employee detail; rolled up into the consolidated journal entry, not posted individually. |
Map your Justworks data
After connecting, DualEntry pulls Justworks metadata and shows you what to map. Until every required mapping is filled in, the integration shows as not yet set up and pay statements do not post.
The mapping work breaks into three pieces. First, map the Justworks company and the payroll vendor so DualEntry knows where journal entries land and which vendor to stamp on every line. Second, map every pay statement item to a GL account so each earnings, tax, deduction, and contribution line posts to the right place. Third, optionally map departments to classifications if you want journal entry lines split by department.
Map companies and the payroll vendor
Map the Justworks company to the DualEntry company that should receive the payroll journal entries, and map the payroll vendor to a DualEntry vendor record. The company mapping determines which DualEntry company the consolidated journal entry posts to. The payroll vendor mapping determines the vendor stamped on every line of the journal entry.
- Open Company → Integrations → Justworks → Configuration.
- On the Companies tab, map the Justworks company to a single DualEntry company.
- On the Payroll vendor tab, map the Justworks-named vendor to your DualEntry payroll vendor record.
If you skip either mapping, sync runs that depend on it fail with an explicit error in the Integration Errors log (see Troubleshoot sync errors).
Map pay statement items to GL accounts
Each pay statement item (earnings line, tax line, employee deduction, employer contribution) must map to a DualEntry GL account before pay statements can post.
- Open the Pay statement items tab. Items are grouped by category:
earnings, taxes, employee_deductions, employer_contributions.
- For each item, choose the DualEntry GL account the line should post to. Item display names follow the pattern
{category}{-Employer|-Employee}: {item name}, for example taxes: Federal Income Tax or employer_contributions-Employer: 401(k) Match.
- Confirm the debit/credit direction stored on each item. This controls whether the amount posts as a debit or credit on the journal entry.
If any pay statement item is unmapped when a payroll run syncs, the run is captured as an error against the relevant pay statement records and no journal entry is written for that payment until the mapping is filled in.
Map departments to classifications
If you maintain a Department classification in DualEntry, Justworks departments are matched by name against your classification lines and applied to the journal entry automatically. This step is optional. Justworks departments that do not match a classification line are omitted from the journal entry, with no error and no auto-create.
- Confirm a classification named Department (or whatever name you configured under integration settings) exists in DualEntry.
- Add a classification line for each Justworks department, with names that match exactly.
- On the next sync, departments resolve automatically, with no per-department mapping screen.
How Justworks names pay statement items
Justworks appends the pay period to each pay statement item name, such as Massachusetts Income Tax (Mar 2024). DualEntry strips that trailing month-and-year pattern before it creates the pay_statement_item record, so the same item is recognized across pay periods instead of producing a new unmapped item every payroll run.
The normalization removes a trailing pattern of the form (Mon YYYY), for example (Mar 2024) or (Dec 2025), then lowercases the name and replaces spaces with underscores to build the item’s source id. As a result, Massachusetts Income Tax (Mar 2024) and Massachusetts Income Tax (Apr 2024) both resolve to the same mapped item and post to the same GL account.
Because date stripping happens at item creation, you map each Justworks pay statement item to a GL account once. You do not need to remap the same item when a new pay period changes the date in its name.
How payroll runs become journal entries
Once setup is complete, each Justworks payment (pay run) becomes a single consolidated journal entry in DualEntry, not one journal entry per employee. The consolidation rules:
- All pay statements that share a
payment_id group together.
- For each unique combination of (pay statement item, classification), the integration sums amounts across employees and creates one journal entry line. For example, with eight departments and a “Salary” item, the entry has eight “Salary” lines, one per department.
- Tax items are grouped by item only, with no classification split. When Consolidate payroll tax is on, tax items are further consolidated by GL account into a single “Consolidated Payroll Tax” line per account.
- The journal entry is dated the payment’s pay date.
- The memo follows the pattern
[Justworks] Payroll {start_date} to {end_date} paid on {pay_date} ({n} employees).
If debits and credits do not balance after grouping, for example when rounding causes a sub-cent drift across many employees, an offset line is added against the configured payroll offset account so the journal entry posts cleanly. The offset account is configured at the organization level under integration settings; review it before going live so the offset does not land in an unexpected GL account.
The consolidated journal entry is the source of truth in DualEntry. Individual pay statement records are kept for traceability but marked as consolidated and excluded from posting. See Journal Entries for how to review the resulting entries.
Optional: Consolidate payroll tax
By default, every tax item across a payroll run is consolidated by GL account into a single “Consolidated Payroll Tax” line per account on the journal entry. This keeps the entry compact when many tax types map to the same account, for example several state-specific income taxes all posting to the same expense account.
If you would rather see one journal entry line per tax item, for granular reporting or tax-type-level analysis, turn this off:
- Open Company → Integrations → Justworks → Settings.
- Toggle Consolidate payroll tax off.
- The next sync re-renders pay statements with one line per (tax item, account).
The setting affects only how tax items are grouped on the journal entry. It does not change which records are pulled from Justworks or how earnings, deductions, or contributions are grouped.
Current limitations
The Justworks integration has the following limitations today:
- Single-entity mode only. Consolidated payroll requires a single DualEntry company per Justworks connection. Multi-entity setups (one connection mapping pay statements to multiple DualEntry companies) are not yet supported and skip pay statement processing with a warning.
- No retroactive remapping. Pay statements already consolidated into a journal entry do not re-post if you later change a pay statement item mapping. Resync the affected payment range to apply the new mapping.
- Department-only classification splits. Pay statement classification splits use the configured department classification. Splits by other classifications (such as project or class) are not applied automatically.
- Departments must match by exact name. A Justworks department does not match a classification line if the names differ, even by punctuation or case.
Troubleshoot sync errors
When a record fails to sync, it appears in the Integration Errors log under Company → Integrations → Justworks.. The most common causes:
| Error | Cause | Resolution |
|---|
[pay_statement_item] ... is not mapped | A pay statement item exists in Justworks but has no DualEntry GL account assigned. | Open the Pay statement items tab, assign a GL account to the unmapped item, and resync. |
[pay_statement_item] ... does not exist | A pay statement references an item not yet pulled into DualEntry. | Sync pay statement items before retrying the payroll run sync. |
payroll_vendor is missing | The Justworks payroll vendor is unmapped on the Configuration screen. | Map the Justworks-named vendor to a DualEntry vendor record. |
company mapping not found for individual ... | A pay statement references an individual whose Justworks company is not mapped. | Map the missing Justworks company on the Configuration screen. |
| Multi-entity warning, pay statements skipped | The connection spans multiple provider entities, which consolidated payroll does not support yet. | Reduce the Justworks connection to a single entity, or wait for multi-entity support. |
| Items have different currencies in the same group | A grouping key (item plus classification) ended up with mixed currencies, typically when an employee was paid in a non-base currency. | Review the affected pay statements in Justworks, normalize the currency, and resync the payment range. |
Result
After completing these steps, every Justworks payroll run posts to DualEntry as a single consolidated journal entry, with line items per (pay statement item, department) and a balanced offset entry where needed. To verify the first run, open the consolidated entry for the latest pay date and confirm its memo reads [Justworks] Payroll ..., that total debits equal total credits, and that each earnings, tax, deduction, and contribution line landed in the GL account you mapped. Spot-check a department split against the Justworks payroll report so you know classifications resolved as expected.
To audit the resulting payroll entries, see Journal Entries. For another payroll provider that connects the same way, see the Gusto integration. To connect additional systems, return to Integrations.