Where do I "enter w-2 codes"? Required to file W-2's, but the link they give me to complete this is broken.

Hi there, @hillroadcoffeero, and welcome to the Community.

Let me share some insights on where you enter w-2 codes in QuickBooks Online.

The first thing you have to do is set up your employees' local tax. Here's how:

1. Go to Payroll, then Employees.
2. Select your employee.
3. From Tax withholding, select Edit.
4. In the Local Taxes section, select the applicable local taxes. 

• If you don't see the expected local taxes, select Edit location. Enter the city and ZIP code combination for the local tax jurisdiction you need. If you're in P.A., you can enter the specific PSD code. 
  
  5. Select Save.

After that, let's proceed to Step 2: Make changes to your employee's work location.

1. Go to Payroll, then select Employees.
2. Select your employee.
3. From Employment details, select Start or Edit.
4. From the Work location dropdown, you'll see a default work location (usually your company's address). Select an existing address or add a work location.
5. If you selected add work location, enter the physical address where your employee works and select the correct address from the list. Don't use a P.O. Box. The physical address helps us determine the correct taxes.
6. When finished, select Save.

 In Boxes 18, 19, and 20 on Form W-2, we use the first two digits of the PSD code where the withholdings were remitted. W-2 codes are automatically added based on the setup. Withholding for employees' local taxes depends on their home (resident) and work locations. No actions are required.

Furthermore, the steps provided above should help settle the issue. I advise reaching out to our support team to obtain further assistance. They have the expertise and tools to help you troubleshoot the problem and provide the most accurate guidance. 

Also, I'll be sharing the following resources to help you learn how to enter your employee's year-to-date paycheck info and company totals: Add pay history to QuickBooks Online Payroll.

Please let me know if you have other concerns or need clarification regarding W-2 codes. I want to make sure everything is taken care of for you. Have a great day!

Thank you for responding. All of this info was set up correctly last year. I keep reaching a dead-end notification with a broken link.

@Shania_C 

The OP's is trying to create W-2 forms and is seeing an error message:

"Before QuickBooks can create this form, you must enter your W-2 codes for all local taxes." 

The OP's question is: "Where do I "enter w-2 codes"?"

Did you answer the question? No, you did not.

The OP did not ask how to set the employee's location.

Or set up their work location.

Or how W-2's fill out boxes.

Please try again. As a reminder, the question is how does the user follow the instructions in the message: "Where do I "enter w-2 codes"?

It should be easy for you, the expert, to answer questions about how follow the error message QuickBooks is displaying, preventing the user from filing their W-2's.

Welcome back to the Community, hillroad. I’m here to route you to the appropriate line to assist you with filing your W-2 with a working link in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Since the Community is a public forum, contacting our Customer Care Support would be the best option. Doing so will allow our phone support to double-check your account and initiate a further investigation concerning the broken link in filing W-2. Also, they have the necessary tools to check through while maintaining your data privacy.

With that, you can refer to the steps below on how you can reach out to them:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online account.
2. Click the Help button.
3. In the QuickBooks Assistance chat box, select Talk to a Human or tap the Contact Us button at the bottom.
4. Then, type in your reason for contacting us in the What can we help you with? Box and click Continue.
5. From there, choose a way to connect with us: Chat with us, get a Callback, or call our support line directly by getting our Phone number.

Additionally, refer to this article for other options when contacting them. You can also scroll down to the bottom to see their support schedule and hours: Contact Payroll Support.

Feel free to get back to this thread in case you have any further queries related to payroll forms. I'll be available on this forum to provide you with valuable assistance. Stay safe and take care!

@RoseJillB  RE: I’m here to route you to the appropriate line to assist you with filing your W-2 with a working link in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

The OP's issue is not that the link is broken. It is that they don't know how to follow the suggestion to enter the W-2 codes.

I expect that entering the codes is the same for all users. Why don't you answer the question?

I'm getting the same error. And I've checked everything! It's just not working.

I appreciate you for checking some things to resolve your concern regarding the required details to file W-2s in QuickBooks. I can also see how important it is to get rid of the error you receive so you can go through ht the process. I'll be providing updates about this and route you to the right support team to assist you further on this matter.

Please know that the error 'Before QuickBooks can create this form.." is recently tagged as an ongoing issue. Our product engineers are now working to fix this as soon as possible.

For now, you can go to the Payroll settings section and complete the action needed from there in order to file W-2s. 

Here's how:

1. Click the Gear icon in the top right of your screen.
2. Choose Payroll settings.
3. Locate the setting that needs to be addressed, then click the pencil icon to make your changes.

Then, I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Payroll Support Team. This is to ensure you'll be added to the list of affected users and rest assured you'll receive updates through email once the issue is resolved.

In case you need steps on how to resolve incorrect details on the said tax form, you can read this article: Fix an incorrect W-2 and W-3.

Keep in touch if you need further assistance with W-2s in QBO or if there's anything else I can do for you. I've got your back, snwwht0611. Take care.

I got the same error and opened up a live chat with the support team to figure out what was wrong.  After 80 minutes on the chat, the support person told me, "what you will need to do now for you to file the W2s is to contact the IRS to get the W2 Code." The support person couldn't provide any more information as to what that is and told me that an accountant would be able to help me.

@CA75 

Rest assured, Intuit knows you are made of time and have nothing to do, and that trained reps that give correct answers too fast would disorient their customers. Rest assured, Intuit doesn't want you to get error messages when filing W-2, so much so that they are all but sure that none exist and they don't have any idea what to do when you get one. Rest assured, Intuit wants you to understand that this is a new problem since W-2's became available, only for a few weeks now, and that since that first day fixing this problem they hardly know about is the most important thing in the world to them and they are diligently working on it. A whole team. The have met many times to talk about it and discuss what they might do. Then they went on a team lunch and congratulated themselves over the great discussion they had. Rest assured, they will get it fixed within a couple of months for you so that you can then create your W-2 forms in March.

Thank you for the good laugh - fortunately the business is small enough that I can file the W-3/W-2s via paper if needed. I wonder how many companies that have this error must e-file - they may wind up having to request a waiver from the IRS to file paper copies.

Hi there, @CA75.

I understand that dealing with these issues can be frustrating, and I want to assure you that we take your concerns seriously. We're going to escalate your case to our Next Level Help team, who will thoroughly review your comments and recent support cases. You can expect to be contacted by them within 1-2 business days.

We're here to help, and if anything else comes up, please feel free to reach out in the Community.

Running into an identical issue here.  Just six W-2s to process but I can't file any of them because of alleged local codes being missing.  And the link to "fix" the codes leads nowhere.

What is ironic is that Quickbooks Online Payroll barely handles local taxes as it is..  When quarterly payments are due, I have to manually archive the liability entry and then manually record the actual payment in the bank account register.  Quickbooks Desktop handled local taxes with zero issues.

I understand how inconvenient it is not to be able to file any of your six W2s due to alleged missing local codes, @bmcacct.

Given that the Community is a public forum, I would highly recommend contacting our Phone Support team for assistance. They are equipped to provide personalized help to guide you in filing your W2s effectively while checking through your account securely. That way, they can review your mapping and initiate a screen-sharing session for further investigation regarding the missing local codes.

Here's how to contact them:
 

1. Go to the Help icon in the top right-hand corner.
2. Select Search, then press the Contact Us button.
3. Enter your question in the box and hit Continue.
4. Choose the best way you'll want to reach out to us.

To know when agents are available, make sure to review their support hours. If you're unable to reach out to them through your QuickBooks account, you can get in touch through our website.

I'm adding these articles to help guide you through filing your forms and addressing any errors you may encounter: 

• File your W-2 and W-3 forms   
• Fix an incorrect W-2 and W-3

Let me know if you have other questions or concerns about filing your W2 forms in QuickBooks. I'm always around to help.

@ChristieAnn  

RE: Please know that the error 'Before QuickBooks can create this form.." is recently tagged as an ongoing issue. Our product engineers are now working to fix this as soon as possible.

While you may actually believe what you write (I doubt it), it is not the truth.  "As soon as possible" would have been long before you even wrote your post - it would have been shortly after this bug first started being reported here a couple of weeks ago. And now it has been another five days. Weeks are not "as soon as possible". A day or two might be.

I don't have 80 minutes to give to support, which is what a previous poster said they had to endure, only to be told to contact the IRS for the codes.  Further, I am a volunteer who does my bookwork on Saturdays.  Intuit doesn't offer support on Saturdays.  I don't think the issue is the W-2 box codes but rather Intuit's implementation of PSD codes.

This is Pennsylvania issue, I suspect, as we have local withholding here that can be based on home and worksite and there are PSD codes for each location.  And Intuit's implementation of PA local withholding is buggy and broken.  Fortunately, I can manually electronically file my federal and state W-2s.  But that is utterly ridiculous, given that using the online atrocity that is Quickbooks cost my church over $2000 in 2023 and basic functionality should work for that cost.  Payroll costs for the desktop version in prior years were $24.95/year that I paid to a third-party tax filing software company, as I manually calculated payroll and that fee was the minimum cost to file 3-6 W-2s per year.

Sorry to hear you have the same issue. I'll post on this thread if/when Quickbooks resolves this issue. It's disappointing that Quickbooks instructs us to contact their support team, and 80 minutes later, there still is no resolution. (And instructing me to contact the IRS for the W-2 codes was rather insulting.)

This was finally resolved by someone in the help chat. I should say, they added the code for me, but they couldn't tell me where to access it myself. (It was just the employer's SD code.) I filed my W-2 s within minutes after that. Seems like the only option is to get to a human and ask them to enter the code. 

This was finally resolved by someone in the help chat. I should say, they added the code for me, but they couldn't tell me where to access it myself. (It was just the employer's SD code.) I filed my W-2 s within minutes after that. Seems like the only option is to get to a human and ask them to enter the code. 

This was finally resolved by someone in the help chat. I should say, they added the code for me, but they couldn't tell me where to access it myself. (It was just the employer's SD code, which you can search for in PA.) I filed my W-2 s within minutes after that. Seems like the only option is to get to a human and ask them to enter the code. 

Same issue - i think i've narrowed down the problem - it appears as though the PSD codes aren't being transmitted to the W2s correctly - for example, the first two digits of the PSD code are the "locality" code on Box 20 of W2 - in my case I have an employee who lives/works in PA - but she moved during the year.  So, one of her line items is accurate (locality 46); however, the other one says her locality is "99" but in fact it should be "15".

Ive been on hold with chat, on the phone, and on more chat since 10am this morning - it's now 8pm.  THIS IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS!  GET SOME DEVELOPER ON THIS ISSUE!

Went as far as one of the guys i talked to said i didn't need to do anything since they're not due until 1/31 so i have plenty of time.  What a freaking joke. FIX THIS PLEASE!

Took me 2 hours on the phone with customer service. Same thing, I had a PA employee who moved to a different local district in PA and even though it showed correct on my end it wasn’t correct on their end. Was holding up every single one of my tax forms. No idea what the rep did but I was able to get everything filed. Good thing I’m switching payroll systems for 2024. The whole, oh don’t worry it’s not due yet, and then fail to fix it is just ridiculous! I’ve had stuff like this happen too many times.

OK - here's the fix - just tell the QB help to follow their own fix from this site - once I convinced a help support person to fix it based on their notes - here you go:

If your customer wants the code customized or changed, you may do it for them in CS Server. Document your case thoroughly, including the system-generated PSD code and the updated one.

1. Search for and open your customer's account in CS Server.
2. Select Setup, then Tax Setup.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Tax code to appear on W-2 forms.
4. In the Note section, select the Click here link.
5. Enter the code your customer wants, then select Save on each.

Just an update to this group:

- Given that my live chat didn't work last week, I talked to a person on the phone this morning. I told her that the issue was on the Quickbooks side with the W-2 local codes in Pennsylvania. I gave her clear instructions as to the issue.

- She found it quickly and said there was one local code missing for an employee that we had hired in 2023. I provided the code to her and I was then able to e-file the W-2s.

- She then gave me instructions to add it myself for our next new hire, however, when I go to payroll settings, there is nothing there for local taxes, so I can't add it myself.  I told her that and she said to check after February 1 to see if there are any updates. (Not holding my breath that it will be fixed in February.)

So the W-2 issue is resolved for me, at least for 2023. Hoping for the best for the rest of you.

Thanks to everyone who replied back to say they had to contact support to get this fixed.  Which PROVES this is a bug in the payroll system that I and everyone else posting on this thread is paying real dollars each year for, as a service.  We should NOT have to contact support to fix something that apparently Intuit has an internal knowledge base article on how to fix.  My rant won't fix anything and I'll probably use (hopefully) only a few minutes of a vacation day on Monday to get the "fix" applied - for the lone employee who we've taken off local tax for.

No idea where the 99 in box 20 is coming from.  Box 20 should have either the six digit code for the work location listed, or the six digit code for the work location, plus the two digit code for the collection agency, if the employer reports everything statewide to single PA collector.  And this isn't new for 2023 - it's been that way since 2018.