E-File State SUI is exporting incorrect data (at least for Ohio)

I understand this can be concerning and crucial to having accurate payroll data, Arling. Below are troubleshooting steps you can perform. Let me guide you through them.

If you get an error message saying The Excel report export feature has a limit of 65,536 detail lines due to Microsoft Excel 2003, 2007, 2010, and 2013 limitations, consider performing these steps:

1. Upgrade to the latest version of Excel.
2. Create an SUI file and save it as an Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook (.xlsm).
3. Open the .xlsm file, enable macros, and click the ADD-INs tab.
4. From the QuickBooks Payroll State SUI E-File dropdown, select Refresh State Data.
5. Specify the state, filing year, and quarter to retrieve data from QuickBooks.
6. Click Get QuickBooks Data to fetch the required data.

For further troubleshooting steps when exporting the report, refer to this article: Fix export to Excel issues in QuickBooks Desktop.

Moreover, if there's no error message and the issue persists, I recommend contacting our live support team directly. They have the tools to investigate and gather information about the inaccuracies of your data after exporting. I will provide you with guidance on the steps to follow.

1. Open QuickBooks Desktop.
2. On the upper right corner, select the Help icon.
3. Choose QuickBooks Desktop Help/Contact Us.

    

   
4. Select Contact Us below. 
5. Input your queries, then choose Continue. 

    

   

     

Furthermore, check this resource to verify our availability time in QuickBooks: Get help with QuickBooks products and services.

Additionally, learn how to efficiently prepare and print your payroll tax payments and forms using QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. This will equip you with the ability to manually file with both the IRS and state agencies: Pay and file payroll taxes and forms manually in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Let me know if you have queries about exporting your reports in QuickBooks Desktop by getting back to this thread. I'm here to help you.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to contact Support and get this resolved?

I've spent 4-5 hours, 2 times x 2.5 hours each, explaining this issue to Support. They tell me I need Level 3 who will call me back...and guess what? THEY NEVER CALL BACK! When I call back, I have to go through the 2.5 hour screen sharing to show them what's wrong. The last guy didn't even know what Unemployment taxes were and how they worked.

Thanks for the suggestion to contact support...but after hours of wasting my time, I tried the community.

@arlinghaus   I may be able to help.  I played with the report for awhile with a test company and then hacked into the code that runs the report to see what it does. Perhaps an explanation will shed some light on what you're seeing.

I am using version 1.29 of the report. In Excel you can find what you're using by clicking the About button on the State E-file report toolbar/menu. If yours is the same or a little newer, your code is probably the same.

RE: 1) The Number of Weeks worked is wrong for most (90%) of the employees.

In my testing is came out right after I recorded a quarter's worth of bi-weekly paychecks for an test employee.

So, I reviewed the code. 

What it is doing is:

- First is uses the pay period dates on each paycheck to determine which calendar week or weeks of the quarter that check's earnings were earned. Then it allocates the earnings across the weeks by dividing the total earnings by the number of days in the pay period, mapping/allocating the pay period to calendar weeks,  and then adds the calculated daily earnings to weekly balances from the check, day by day, into the proper week.

- Next, it uses those weekly balances to calculate the 'credit weeks', which is any week where the employee earned at least $116. The total credit weeks are then used on the report.

I expect this is according to your state's rules, but I didn't check.

So, you might be seeing different credit weeks than you expect if 1) your pay periods on your paychecks are not accurate, or 2) the employees didn't make $116 in some of the weeks, based on the calculation above (In turn that could be because of incorrect pay period dates).

RE: 2) Employees with Zero payroll for the period show up in the Excel sheet with Zeros except for the weeks worked, which is 1. This always causes the file to get rejected by the State.

I was only able to duplicate this in one way. This was to not pay an employee in the reporting quarter, but to pay them at the beginning of the next quarter with a pay period that reached back into the prior quarter. In that case, the wages from the check are used to calculate the credit weeks, just one week in my test case as with you, and the then employee appears just as you describe.

I'm not sure if that's a error, as again I didn't check your state's rules.  It's sort of a weird case, so it could be a coding error in the report.

RE: 3) The rate listed for each employee is the rate that was current at the beginning of the Quarter for that employee instead of the current rate. In other words, if I forgot to change the rate starting January 1, and changed it after the first payroll, the rate that shows up on the Excel sheet is the "old" rate instead of the new rate.

I tried to duplicate this but was unable to. I created a paycheck for an employee using one rate, then changed it, and then created a second check with a later date and the new rate was used on the report.

I checked the code and found that it works through the paycheck data by date, and each time it encounters SUI it pulls in and uses the rate on the newer paycheck. There's even a comment above the line that does this that says, "update the rate for the item with each paycheck so that we get the latest rate as we work through the data".

So, I'm not sure how in your case that's not happening. I can't see a way to trick the code into not loading the tax rate for each subsequent paycheck.

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When you compare the methods and rules used by the report to your case, does it shed any light on what might be happening?