My employee has taken a weeks unpaid leave - how do I enter this in core payroll as it won't let me enter zero hours only exclude her from payroll?

Handling and entering unpaid leave in QuickBooks Online Core Payroll is easy, sue-ralph. I'll be delighted to walk you through the steps.

Here's how:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online account.
2. Go to the Payroll menu and then select Employees.
3. Select the employee for whom you wish to enter unpaid leave.
4. Click on the Actions dropdown button and choose Employee's leave.
5. From there choose  Unpaid leave.
6. Enter the first and last day of leave.
7. Once done click on Save.

Keep in mind that, QuickBooks will deduct the unpaid leave from the pay run for the period selected.

Additionally, you can refer to this article for future assistance, which provides examples to help you better understand how the leave settings work based on their configuration: Examples of how leave is applied based on setup scenarios in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll.

I'm still ready to back you up if you need more help with payroll. I'll keep the thread open so you can comment back.