Payroll System QuickBooks Import

What do we import?

We import 941 employees and their paychecks and 1099 vendors and their payments.

The import can only be done from the 941/940 program.

We support QuickBooks 2002 or later—Basic, Pro, Accountant and Enterprise versions. Some specialized versions of QuickBooks (QuickBooks Contractor’s version, for instance) require manual report creation prior to import.

Preparing for Import

QuickBooks should be in Single User Mode.

If you have the Enterprise version of QuickBooks, open the Payroll System program and, while holding down the Ctrl and Shift keys, press the letter S. This will enable you to select the Enterprise version when importing.

Open QuickBooks and click on "Preferences" on the menu bar. The following preferences should be set:

  • General: Uncheck “Pressing enter moves between fields.”
  • Reports and Graphs: Uncheck “Display modify report window …”

For Accountant and Enterprise versions:

  • Sales and Customers: Check “Enable sales orders” and “Use price levels.”

Before beginning import, both QuickBooks and Payroll System must be open, with Payroll System in front.

Make sure you are running the latest version of QuickBooks. In QuickBooks, go to File > Update QB Desktop then restart the computer. Then click File > Update QB Desktop again until there are no further updates.

Importing 941 employees and checks:

  1. The clients must first be manually added to Payroll System.
  2. Click Import Quickbooks from the Utilities menu.
  3. Click OK on the information messages. The program will bring QuickBooks to the foreground and create a custom Employee List report and save it to a disk file. Do not interrupt the process. Answer Yes to continue to the next step.
  4. A list of employees will be displayed. Click Select All and then Import. Answer Yes to proceed to the next step.
  5. Answer OK to the information message. QuickBooks will again come to the foreground and two custom reports will be created. The first report contains the employees’ paycheck information and the second has the QuickBooks payroll items. Answer Yes to continue to the next step.
  6. This step imports the checks into the previously imported employees. A screen will display the payroll columns in QuickBooks compared to the columns in Payroll System.
    1. If the Quickbooks columns are all assigned correctly, (normally the case) click on Accept Default.
    2. If you wish to manually assign columns click on Assign. You can then assign a payroll item in QuickBooks to a specific item in Payroll System.

You can now use the imported data to create forms or reports or transfer to W2/1099 portion of the program.

Troubleshooting tips:

One or more employees do not import. Check QuickBooks Employee List for employees with missing Social Security number.

Message during import that a report contains incorrect columns. This is usually due to a setting in QuickBooks. See instructions for setting QuickBooks preferences.

Error 5, invalid procedure call or argument. Check the Employee Contact Report in QuickBooks for missing Social Security numbers. Also ensure that the employees have a complete address, street, city, state, and zip or no address at all.

Error 62, input past end of file. Check the QuickBooks employees for name or addresses that contain the double quote (“) character. Delete the double quote or replace it with single quote (‘).

Checks after a certain date did not import. Depending on the individual computer there is a limit on the number of checks that will be imported, usually about 1,500. Try importing for a smaller time period, for example one month instead of one quarter.

You found a mistake and need to import again. Employees can be imported again (steps 2 and 3) without causing any problems. Any additional employees will be added. If the problem is with importing checks, importing the same time period will duplicate checks. The easiest solution is usually to delete the employees and import year to date again.

How did we do?

Move employee/recipient to another client

Restoring a deleted employee

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