Use a clearing bank instead of your real bank. All detail transactions will go to the clearing bank and then do a bank transfer for the lump sum to zero out the clearing bank and withdraw from the real bank.

Thank you.  We do have a "payroll clearing" account, but that is what the payroll goes to and then the EFT "cheques" are paid from so they clear that account waiting for the bank reconciliation to clear the individual cheques.  Are you saying I need to get the system to post the cheques to another clearing account?

Hmm ... if you are using the clearing bank in your payroll setup then why do you say the details of all the cheques/EFT are showing in your real bank? 

if you are using a clearing bank in payroll then all transactions will go the clearing bank then YOU have to manually do a bank transfer to clear the clearing bank and withdraw the money from your real bank - 1 lump sum.

I think my problem is with the OFX statements I download from my bank to clear the transactions.  In the Bank reconciliation module it is looking for me to X out (clear) the individual payroll cheques that are pending in that module. 

In the OFX reconciliation (and the official bank statement) it only has the lump sum that was approved as the EFT transfer, but those reports do not breakdown the individual payments.  The OFX reconciliation won't allow me to clear multiple cheques to that one amount.  I can manually X out the cheques on the Bank Reconciliation module and ignore the OFX statement lines with the lump sums.  This balances the bank and books.

Again, if you are using a clearing bank for payroll (check payroll options - processing - default bank ) then all your individual cheques would be in the clearing bank ONLY. If you are seeing cheques in your real bank then that means the payroll is using your real bank and not a clearing bank.

You do not reconcile the clearing bank normally since it would be zero after payroll is completely done.  Your real bank will not know anything about payroll. After you have posted your payroll, you do a manual bank transfer for the lump sum of the payroll - take it out of the real bank and put it to the clearing bank to zero it out.

So your real bank should only have 1 line for the lump that and your OFX statement would have the same 1 line and they would match.

Thank you for the screen shot. This is helpful.