Wages are complicated because the way you need to break down the costs on your P&L is not the same as the way the actual payments break down - your P&L needs to show the total gross cost of wages (before any deductions for tax/NI/employee pension contributions) and of the other employment costs (employer pension contributions etc) but the payments break down as tax & NI to HMRC, total employer plus employee pension contributions to the pension provider, and the remaining net to the worker.
So normally you have to use journals.
You create a journal on the pay date that shows the correct P&L entries, and puts the corresponding liabilities (to the employees, to HMRC and to your pension provider) onto balance sheet codes. When you make payment the payment transactions cancel out the liabilities.