Computer Ransomware, recreated payrol, need to balance unemployment taxes

I'll help you fix your Federal and state taxes balance, SherylF.

You'll need to add prior payroll tax payments to resolve this in QuickBooks Desktop. 

I'll walk you through the steps:
 

1. Go to Payroll taxes.
2. Select the quarter you need to enter taxes you’ve paid.
3. In the Amounts paid column, enter all the Federal and state tax amounts you paid.
4. Repeat the above steps for each quarter you paid taxes.
5. Select Save.

You may open this article to see the detailed information on how to perform the process: Add payroll info to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll when you already paid employees this year.

Let me know if you have other questions, I'll be right here to help.

Thanks for the suggestion.  However, I am in balance with Federal and State withholding taxes, but I am not in balance with Federal Unemployment and State Unemployment taxes.  It is calculating the taxes for the month of December first before calculating the taxes starting in January.  I know I can balance for the year and for the 4th quarter, I was just wondering if QuickBooks does a "compression" of data after it has all been re-entered, to where it will calculate the unemployment taxes starting with the January payroll, not the December payroll.

Hi there, SherylF. 

I appreciate you for coming back to the thread to add further details about your concern. With this, I'll be sharing details on how taxes work in QuickBooks Desktop. Then, ensure you'll be able to fix the date of the calculation of your Federal Unemployment and State Unemployment taxes.

Your payroll tax calculations depend on your payroll data or all the payroll information you've entered or set up. First off, your payroll tax calculation is always dependent on the following items:

• Your state taxes set up for your employee
• Your State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) rate
• Your employee who reached the SUI wage base limit
• Your setup for your payroll items

Thus said, you'll have to review all the details mentioned above so you'll be able to locate and find the details on why your Federal Unemployment and State Unemployment taxes aren't calculating at the right time. You may open this article to see further details and how to perform the process: Troubleshoot incorrect state unemployment (SUI) or withholding (SIT) on paychecks. 

Lastly, you can refer to this article to view steps on how you can use a liability adjustment to correct employees’ year-to-date (YTD) or quarter-to-date (QTD) payroll info that includes company contributions, employee additions, and deductions: Adjust payroll liabilities in QuickBooks Desktop.

If there's anything else that I can help you with payroll taxes, please let me know in the comment section down below. I'll be always around ready to help.

Thanks for your reply.  I do know why the unemployment is not calculating correctly.  It is because our computer was hacked and all data was lost from January 2021 through November 2021.  We were able to restore our files from 2020. I still had to operate normally and pay our employees weekly, so I paid them on December 3, 2021 (which QuickBooks took as their first payroll of the year and calculated the unemployment taxes on all employees, even those that had surpassed the $7,000 limit).  When I was finally able to recreate the payroll, QuickBooks counted the payroll for December as the beginning balance, so the unemployment calculations for the first quarter are off by December's payroll.  For example, an employee who made $7,000 in December, had calculations for unemployment for the full $7,000 in December, but once the January payroll was recreated, those employees did not have any unemployment calculations, thereby throwing off the correct amount of unemployment for the 1st quarter of 2021. Unemployment is to be paid on the FIRST $7,000 of earnings.  Any ideas from here (other than me having to export and manually calculate)?

Hi @SherylF,

Thank you for reaching out to us here in the Community. I'm here to help you correct the payroll taxes in QuickBooks Desktop.

When you start a company file, the correct process would be to enter all the past payroll data first. After adding the information, you'll need to follow all the tax payments you've paid to the IRS and your state.

We recommend using this method to ensure the next payroll you'll create will recognize the limits and existing paychecks. Use this article to learn how to enter prior payroll and taxes correctly in QuickBooks: Add payroll info to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

You can use these links to know more about how to resolve incorrect unemployment taxes in your account:

• Troubleshoot incorrect state unemployment (SUI) or withholding (SIT) on paychecks.
• Understand the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) deduction limit.

Also, I suggest using the payroll reports available in the system to determine the cause of the discrepancies. The data we collate in the system will depend on the information entered by the users and the setup of the payroll items.

For additional reference, I've attached a link you can use to correct wage and tax amounts using payroll checkup in QuickBooks: Run payroll checkup.

Leave a comment below if you have other concerns about entering prior payroll in the Desktop version. The Community and I will be around to help you.

I really appreciate the answers that I have received, however, I will just assume that I will have to figure out the unemployment manually since no one can answer my question.  Thanks!