How to make a paystub in 30 seconds

A useful pay stub starts with the parties to the payment. List the business or client that paid, the person who received the money, and an address for each when you have it. Add the pay period and the date the money changed hands. Those dates keep a monthly invoice, a bank deposit, and the payment record tied to the same piece of work.

The money section should be easy to audit. Show gross pay before deductions, each deduction or tax estimate on its own line, and the resulting net pay. Year-to-date totals belong beside the current-period figures when you are keeping a series of records. If you use hours and a rate, those inputs should agree with gross pay. A reader should be able to follow the arithmetic without guessing what a line means.

Classification matters because the same payment cannot be described as contractor income, employee wages, and an owner's draw at once. A 1099 contractor usually has no tax withheld by the payer. A W-2 employee has payroll withholding. An owner's draw is a distribution from the owner's business, not wages. Pick the description that matches how the money was actually paid.

Use 1099 when you worked as an independent contractor or ran a self-employed business and a client paid for your work. The payer generally does not withhold federal income tax, Social Security tax, or Medicare tax from an independent contractor's payment. You are responsible for your own tax filings and may need to make estimated payments. A payment record can help organize the period, but it does not calculate your tax return.

Use W-2 only for employee wages. That record can show hours, rate, gross wages, and illustrative withholding. Actual withholding depends on the employee's Form W-4, state rules, payroll setup, and other facts. If you are preparing your own record, compare it with the payroll and bank records that document what happened.

Use owner's draw when a sole proprietor or eligible business owner takes money out of the business as a distribution. A draw is not salary. QuickStub does not put Federal Insurance Contributions Act withholding on that classification. Keep the draw record with the business books and handle income tax through the filing process that applies to your business.

QuickStub keeps the editor in three open steps, with the document preview visible beside the form on wider screens and available through a preview toggle on a phone. You can move back to an earlier step without losing what you typed. The preview changes as the form changes, so check the document while you work instead of waiting for a final screen.

Start with a real payment record, invoice, or bank deposit in front of you. The generator can total the figures you enter, but it cannot know whether a name, date, or amount is true. Copy from the source rather than reconstructing the payment from memory.

Treat every tax figure on a self-prepared paystub as an estimate. QuickStub's 1099 view shows a 15.3% self-employment-tax reference figure and labels it as estimated. The federal self-employment tax rate is 15.3%, but an actual Schedule SE calculation is based on net earnings and can be affected by the Social Security wage limit, other wages, and the additional Medicare tax rules. The number on the payment record is not the amount to copy onto a tax return.

Contractor payments generally arrive without withholding, apart from cases such as backup withholding. That means the payment record should not imply that a client sent tax to the government for you when it did not. Keep money aside and use current Internal Revenue Service guidance or a qualified tax professional to work out estimated payments.

For W-2 wages, a percentage entered into a self-prepared record is still illustrative. Payroll withholding comes from the worker's elections and the rules in effect for that payroll. Owner's draws have no payroll withholding in the generator because the draw itself is a distribution. These labels help keep unlike payments apart; they do not replace payroll, bookkeeping, or tax advice.

Year to date is the running total from the start of the calendar year through the current payment. If a contractor received $2,000 in January and $1,500 in February, the February record has current gross of $1,500 and year-to-date gross of $3,500. Current and year-to-date figures answer different questions, so do not replace one with the other.

A first record can start with zero prior year to date. For a later record, enter the gross total from earlier periods before adding the current payment. QuickStub adds the current amount to that prior figure. Check the result against invoices, deposits, or the business ledger. A gap in one period will otherwise carry into every record after it.

Use the same classification and a consistent pay-period pattern across a series unless the underlying arrangement changed. Consistency makes reconciliation easier, but the source records remain the authority. Correct the source and the affected payment records when you find an error.

A self-prepared paystub is a payment record. It is not employer-issued and it is not a tax filing. A lender, landlord, or benefits reviewer can ask for different evidence or decline to use it. QuickStub does not guarantee acceptance, and no formatting choice changes who prepared the document.

Pair the record with evidence that comes from outside the generator. A tax return can show reported annual income. Bank statements can show deposits. Invoices, contracts, Forms 1099, or bookkeeping reports can connect a period to the work and payment. Send only what the recipient requests, and protect account numbers or other information they do not need.

The match between documents matters more than decoration. The payer name, date, and amount on the payment record should agree with the invoice and deposit. If the recipient has a checklist, follow it. Ask what alternatives they accept before paying for a document when their policy is unclear.

Read the finished paystub from top to bottom. Confirm the payer and payee, the period dates, the pay date, and the classification. Recalculate hours times rate when you used employee wages. Compare gross and net with the payment that cleared. Check prior year to date against the previous record, then check the new running total.

Look at every estimate label. A 1099 tax reference should not appear as money withheld from the contractor. An owner's draw should not look like wages. W-2 withholding should remain described as an estimate unless the record reproduces figures from an actual payroll calculation.

Finally, open the PDF rather than trusting the browser preview alone. Make sure long names and addresses fit, the logo is readable, and no optional field says something you did not mean to include. Keep the final file with its supporting records so you can explain each figure later.