How to set up Manual payroll

Good evening, @georginaearl. 

It's great to see a new face here in the Community! 

Before you can manually run payroll in QuickBooks Desktop, you need to enable payroll inside your QuickBooks settings.

Note: Before you set up manual payroll, be sure to update your version of QuickBooks so you get the latest fixes and improvements.

QuickBooks Desktop 2018 or later

1. From the Edit dropdown menu, select Preferences.
2. Pick Payroll & Employees, then tap the Company Preferences tab.
3. In the QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Features section, choose the Full payroll and the Manual Payroll checkboxes.
4. In the Get payday peace of mind window, click Next and then Activate in the confirmation screen.
5. Hit OK to apply the changes.
6. Select OK to exit out of the preferences window.

You can now run your payroll manually. If you have any more issues along the way, don't hesitate to come back and ask. Have a wonderful day! 

As I previously mentioned, that does not work, it is still greyed out, is there anything else I can do?

I really want to use the manual payroll feature.

Thank you.

Hey again, @georginaearl. 

Thanks for reaching back out! 

Since the steps above don't work, I recommend trying ALL these troubleshooting options below to help eliminate any errors or glitches that may be occurring behind the scenes: 

• Verify and Rebuild Data in QuickBooks Desktop 
• Clean install QBDT

If these actions from above don't help, I recommend contacting our Customer Support Team for further assistance. They'll be able to do screen share to review your account with you. 

Please come back and let us know the end solution. We want to ensure that you get this resolved as soon as possible. I'll be waiting for your response! 

The "Manual" box is grayed out and not clickable. Can I change that somehow? Thanks.

Hi there, JCBma! Let's get this figured out for you.

Before starting, can you share the QuickBooks Desktop version you're using? This way, we can confirm the compatibility and get on the same page.

Moreover, if you have an active payroll subscription and a supported QuickBooks Desktop version, keep QuickBooks up-to-date.

Next, verify and rebuild data in your company file to repair this issue. I'll show you how.

1. Go to the File menu, then Utilities.
2. Select Verify Data and wait for it to load.
3. Navigate to the File menu again, Utilities, then Rebuild Data.
4. Click OK when you get the message Rebuild has completed.

If the issue persists, refer to this article to run another tool to fix common errors: Repair your QuickBooks Desktop for Windows.

Keep me updated on how things go on your end, as I want to ensure this gets resolved for you.