Employee Time Job Cost and 3rd Party Payroll

Thanks for the complete details above, @Krueger Accounting. With that, I can provide the exact details in tracking your employees' time and job cost in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

When you're using a third-party provider to run your payroll, you may set up manual payroll (without a subscription) in QBDT. This feature lets you manually track your payroll transactions (i.e., employee hours) so you can record your third-party checks accordingly. Let me guide you how.

Before you start, make sure to update QBDT to its latest release to get the latest fixes and improvements. Once ready, follow the steps below in setting up manual payroll:

1. Go to the Edit menu,
2. Select Preferences.
3. Choose Payroll & Employees, then select the Company Preferences tab.
4. In the QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Features section, select the Full payroll radio button.
5. Select OK.

I've attached a screenshot below that shows the last three steps.

Once done, let's go to the QuickBooks Desktop Help page to continue the setup process. Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu.
2. Select QuickBooks Desktop Help (or press F1 on your keyboard).
3. In the Search field, type in "manual payroll" and press Enter on your keyboard.
4. Select the Process payroll manually (without a subscription to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll) topic.
5. On the first step, select the manual payroll calculations link under the If you prefer to process your payroll manually section.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process.
7. Close and reopen QuickBooks Desktop.

Also, I'm adding this article to further guide you in managing your employees and payroll transactions in QBDT: Get started with Payroll. It also includes topics about company info, employees, and taxes, to name a few.

Let me know in the comments below if you have other concerns about tracking employee hours or inquiries about manual payroll in QBDT. I'm just around to help. Take care always.

The "Manual Payroll" box under the Full payroll is grayed out. I can select the Full payroll, but can't check the box.

Thanks for keeping us posted, Krueger Accounting.

I'll share some of the troubleshooting steps that can resolve unexpected results when performing a task on QuickBooks Desktop. Let's start by making sure you have the latest maintenance release and features. Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu and select Update QuickBooks.
2. Proceed to the Update Now tab.
3. Check the box for Reset Update, then click Get Updates. 
4. Restart your computer after getting a prompt that the update is complete.
5. Re-open QuickBooks and install the update when prompted.

Then, you can follow through with the steps my colleague @Rea_M provided above. 

If you're still getting the same result, let's repair QuickBooks. This process fixes most of the most common program issues and bugs when working in QuickBooks. Let me share this article so you can follow through with the steps: Repair your QuickBooks Desktop for Windows.

Feel free to leave a reply on how this works. I'll be around to help. Have a good one!