We are in BC. An employee was supposed to have taken sick days, but was coded as vacation, so now the sick days taken are wrong and the accrued vacation is short (negative) by the amount of the sick days. How can I fix this?

Hi there, LauriePB2658.

Since you mentioned the sick days were coded as vacation in your employee's record, I can help you fix that.

To resolve the negative vacation balance and return the correct amount of vacation pay to the employee, I recommend deleting and recreating the paycheck.  

First, delete the existing paycheck. Next, review the vacation and sick leave accruals in the employee’s profile to confirm whether they’ve updated properly. If the balances are still incorrect, you can manually edit them to ensure they reflect the right amounts.

Once you've confirmed that everything is accurate, recreate the paycheck. Make sure to select Sick Pay instead of vacation to properly represent the type of leave taken by the employee.

If you have any other questions or need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to help.

These errors occurred over the last two years.  Is there a quick-fix to correct them, rather than reversing and recreating four or five paycheques?

Hello there, Laurie.

Yes there's an easier way to fix the sick days that was coded as vacation on in QuickBooks Desktop. You can go through this through the Payroll Taxes Liabilities and conduct an adjustment to your payroll liabilities. With this, you can you can fix all 5 paycheques in just one entry. Here's how:

1. Go to the Employees menu.
2. Select Payroll Taxes and Liabilities and then click Adjust Payroll Liabilities.
3. For the date, you can use today’s date or the date you want the correction to show on the books.
4. On the Effective Date, it should match the Date field.
5. Now when creating the adjustment, select Employee and then choose the specific employee from the dropdown.
6. Click the Employee Adjustment button. This ensures the change appears on their pay stubs and reports.

In the Taxes and Liabilities section, select the Vacation payroll item and leave the amount as 0.00. In the Wage Base column, enter the number of hours to be returned as a positive value. Next, select the Sick payroll item, leave the amount as 0.00, and enter the same number of hours in the Wage Base column as a negative value to show they were used.

If you're unsure of the process, you can also reach out to an account to ensure that everything stays accurate in your books.

Feel free to click the Reply button if you have other questions about QuickBooks.

The item list is the payroll deductions list (CPP, EI, Benefits etc), not the payroll items Sick Days, Hourly wage rate, Vacaction payout etc), so I cannot access them through this method.

Thank you for circling back, LauriePB2658. I appreciate your patience as we work together to resolve this issue. Let me provide some additional clarification.

The Payroll Taxes and Liabilities adjustment feature is designed to correct errors related to payroll deductions or contributions, such as CPP, EI, or benefits. However, wage-related items, such as Sick Days and Vacation Pay, are handled differently because they are tied to employee earnings rather than liabilities.

To fix the Sick Days and Vacation Pay balances, you can manually edit and adjust directly through the affected employee's paycheque.

Here's how:

1. Navigate to the Employees menu and select Employee Center.
2. Double-click the affected employee’s name to open their profile.
3. Locate the specific paycheque(s) that were incorrectly coded and double-click to open it.
4. Click Paycheck Details to edit the cheque.
5. In the Earnings section, under ITEM NAME, change the incorrectly coded entry.
6. QuickBooks will automatically update the accruals, ensuring that Sick Days and Vacation Pay balances are adjusted accordingly.

You can add a reply below for any follow-up questions.

As mentioned, these errors happened over multiple paycheques.  Isn't there a way to fix in a once-off adjustment rather than changing paystubs that have already been sent to the employee?

Hello there, LauriePB2658. I appreciate you getting back to the thread.

There's a way to fix the issue without editing your historical pay records. We can adjust your employees’ existing sick and vacation balances directly on their profiles. Here's how:
 

1. From the Employees menu, select Employee Centre.
2. Double-click the appropriate employee.
3. Go to the Payroll Info tab, choose Sick/Vacation.
4. Adjust the sick and vacation balances, then click OK.
    

Let's repeat the same process for other employees.

Feel free to reply if you have other concerns or clarifications. We'll be here to assist you!

This is QB desktop, there is no Sick/Vacation button.  The Accrual button shows sick days in hours, not dollars, and this involves two pay levels (a salary raise was awarded half way through the year), so hours won't give an accurate adjustment.  The Vacation button has reset to January 1st, so there are not enough $$ to reduce.

Thank you for getting back to us, Laurie. I’ve reviewed the conversation and now have a clearer understanding of your situation.

The affected paycheques dated back two years. The quickest way to fix the incorrect coding of sick days as vacation days would be to delete and recreate these paycheques. However, this process will impact your subsequent years' payroll data.

To ensure these corrections don’t cause issues with your payroll data for future years, I highly recommend consulting your payroll advisor. They are best equipped to guide you on payroll corrections and address any related legal concerns.

Additionally, you can reach out to our Live Payroll Support Team for recommendations on making these corrections efficiently. They have the tools to review your data and provide step-by-step assistance. You can refer to this article for information on their support hours and contact details: Get help with QuickBooks products and services.

Let us know if you need any assistance. We’re here to help.