@Angelyn_T  RE: While we await further information, I recommend reporting this issue as a bug directly to our product developers.

Seems like nonsense to me. Intuit is on notice that they've broken QuickBooks and as a result customers paying for and using your payroll services can no longer be compliant with the law.

You should be internally motivated, without any more customer input, to fix this ASAP. Time is running out. Last I checked, you have about 4 million payroll customers, many of whom will have issues with these recent inappropriate restrictions. You've heard from many of them already that you messed up by disallowing 1) all zeros for the SSN, and 2) two employee records with the same SSN.

You know how to change it back to the correct way it used to work. You don't need any more input from us.

I have reported it - nothing but silence on your end.

Nothing - it is getting very frustrating.

I have reported.

Our temporal work around is this:  We have an older version (maybe half year older) of the Quickbooks Pro with Enhanced Payroll installed in one of our backup Windows 10 Pro desktop.  That un-updated Enhanced Payroll version accepts whatever you put on the SSN field, either starting with 9 or just [removed]. We are using backup and restore, switching back and forth between these two Quickbooks DTs (we are using 2021 Pro version) to input new employees when a new SSN is being applied but not yet available.  After reimporting back to latest version of Enhanced Payroll, it accepts the "status quo".  We will keep that older version un-updated in that desktop just for this conversion.  We don't know how long we can keep doing this until the two versions become incompatible or the bug is fixed. 

We also tried another method mentioned here in the earlier post. We changed the first number to be "0". It looks working and the employee info. can be saved.  However, if you immediately change back to "9", it will be rejected.  Not sure if you change back to "9" in a week, it will be rejected or not.

Thanks for the info.  Unfortunately we don't have an unupdated QB.  This could all be resolved if Intuit would just get rid of this feature.

It's November- still no solution????   Seems such an easy fix.  I don't understand why they can't update it.  Are they trying to?

We know this situation has to be so hard on you. Currently, this is a limitation. We greatly value your feedback and understand that customer input is crucial for us to improve our products and services. We appreciate your understanding that limitations can sometimes be a part of any product, and we strive to address them to the best of our ability.

We recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. We would be more than happy to hear from you. Your insights will help us enhance the user experience and ensure that we continue to meet your needs effectively. Here is how:

1. In your QuickBooks account, click the Help option.
2. Select the Send Feedback Online option.
3. Choose Product Suggestion.
4. Enter your feedback.
5. Click the Send Feedback button.

Also, feel free to visit our Feedback forum page to see a list of other QuickBooks users who have already suggested this feature and for the recent updates in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks allows you to see each vendor's data, change them, and view the progress of their transactions. If you want to understand more about them, read the following guides:

• Create a Payroll Summary Report.
• Understand Reports.

For additional QuickBooks-related concerns, don't hesitate to post them here in the Community. We're always available and willing to lend a hand to your queries. Have a great day ahead.

@JamesAndrewM  RE: As we value your suggestions, I recommend sending your feedback to our Product Development Team. Here is how

You're actually treating this as a suggestion? A suggestion that QuickBooks should return to functionality that allowed customers to be compliant with payroll laws & regulations? Suggesting that we ask nicely to be able to be compliant when it's time to print and file W-2's?

If so, that's not appropriate. Instead, you should recognize this error Intuit has made and raise alarm bells internally before it's too late - to escalate this issue to product development to get them to remove the new restrictions that prevent customers from being compliant with the law. It will be too late in about two months.

Not sure why we need to report it - again- they clearly know and have done nothing to fix it which is hard to understand.  It worked before and now it does not.  The IRS instructs you to enter all zeros and this has been a thread since APRIL- seems like a lot of time for you all to get this figured out.   Seems like you have not done anything and your solution is for us to go in and report it to the development team?   Again?   That is not a solution.  A helpful answer would be that you are on it and understand the severity of it and are working hard to get it fixed.  Again, the beginning of this post was APRIL.   It is November........   are you doing anything at all or just asking us to tell your development team?  

Is there an estimated time before this issue is fixed? As we approach tax season, this becomes more and more necessary. The company I work for has already stated they will be exerting pressure on our IT department to find an alternative to QuickBooks for all of our bookkeeping needs if there's no resolution in sight. This will become a customer retention issue.

I understand the urgency of fixing the situation, especially with tax season approaching, @nolenit. Let me direct you to the appropriate support to help you enter a valid SSN.

Before doing so, could you please verify what digits you used when entering your employee's SSN? If you entered all zeros or an invalid SSN, it is essential to input a valid one.

Obtaining the necessary information for each employee is a crucial step before adding them to QBDT. With the latest payroll update, the SSN has become a vital requirement for tax reporting purposes. Therefore, it is imperative to enter a valid SSN to successfully save your employee's details.

If you entered a valid SSN but the issue remains, I recommend reaching out to our QuickBooks Support team. Issues like this require a thorough investigation of your account which we're unable to perform here in the Community. While we're unable to provide an estimated time for the issue to be resolved, one of our live agents will assist you in implementing the permanent fix once available. You can follow the steps below to contact them:
 

1. In your top menu bar, go to Help, then QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Click Contact Us.
3. Enter a brief description of the issue in our Ask a question (or tell us what's wrong) field.
4. Hit Continue.
5. Select We’ll contact you for a callback or Message Us to start an instant messaging session.

Furthermore, in QuickBooks Desktop, we can generate multiple reports tailored to meet your business's specific needs. This will allow us to conduct a comprehensive analysis of your company's financials, encompassing payroll taxes and employee contributions.

Keep us in the loop whenever you require additional support entering your employee's information. The Community team is always around to provide the necessary help.

Hello,

You are missing the point I believe, we are talking about entering a number (all zeros) per the IRS when we are waiting for the new employee ( in my case a H2A worker) to receive their social security number.  It is not a valid number but a prior work around to get the employee paid.

@Nicole_N  RE: If you haven't yet, I recommend updating your QuickBooks Desktop to its latest release and getting the latest tax table update in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. If you still have issues entering a valid SSN for your employee even after performing these steps, it's best to reach out directly to our Payroll Support team. 

Last I checked it's the latest release(s) that caused the issue, due to new and inappropriate restrictions put into place in those releases. Has Intuit changed something to relax those restrictions, as would be appropriate, in order to match the law and and to allow customers to be compliant? In other words, have you come to your senses and figured out your mistake? If not, then there's no reason to get the latest release to solve this issue.

@Ginseng_Gal  RE: It is not a valid number but a prior work around to get the employee paid.

It's actually more than a workaround!  It is the IRS/SSA's prescribed way to file W-2's when the employee has been granted the right to work but has not yet received their SSN. (The SSA often takes weeks or months to issue an SSN to an adult, and short-staffing due to the continued fallout from COVID has made their turnaround times worse.)

QuickBooks used to correctly allow nine-zeros as an SSN to handle this case, and then automatically printed "Applied for" on the W-2 (per the W-2 instructions) and the SSA actually requires nine-zeros in this case when e-filing the W-2's.

Also, if you don't have the employee's SSN - for whatever reason, it does not matter - you should file W-2's with the SSA on time using nine-zeros. Then, at a later date when you get the SSN, you're expected to file a W-2c with the correct SSN.

Somehow, Intuit has apparently devolved in their understanding of the law so much so that they have broken  the correct behavior QuickBooks had built to comply with these cases by disallowing nine-zeros for the SSN field.

I've no idea how this came to be or why they have been so stubborn and unwilling to revert the changes - despite being told for months now by various experts here online of their obvious mistake. They've probably received more than a few phone calls as well.

I have ordered W-2s from the IRS so that we can type those W-2s that QB will not process (due to missing SSN) as I highly doubt Intuit will remedy the problem.

It is a planned flaw so they can move everyone to quickbooks online.  it's been their goal for years now and they can't see why accountants are reluctant to move their employees away from desktop....so now they are breaking desktop

Our firm would consider a different software if that happened.  None of us like QB Online.

We have already started looking.  They've used us to build their software for all of these years (over 30 for me) and now they want to totally disregard our needs.  

Does this mean that entering a # that starts with a 9 or all 0s is accepted on the online version? 

Getting close to tax time and if there is no fix to this I will have to do a different W2 Filing of some type. 

Welcome to the QuickBooks Community. I also appreciate you joining the thread and sharing your concern about whether entering a # that starts with a nine (9) or all 0s is accepted on the online version. I'll gladly share some information to help.

Intuit released an update as of January 18, 2024, which enables entry of zeros for Social Security Numbers (SSN) in supported versions of QuickBooks.

Here's a list of versions the update supports:

• QuickBooks 2024 - R4 (US) - 20.1
  
• QuickBooks 2023 - R9 (US) - 119.1
  
• QuickBooks 2022 - R13 (US) - 58.1
  
• QuickBooks 2021 - R16 (US) - 16.1

You can manually check for updates to confirm you're using your product's latest release.

Here's how:

1. In the top menu bar, go to Help, then Update QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Select Update Now, then Get Updates.
3. Close and reopen QuickBooks to install your update.

I'm including this article you can use in the future:

• Correct your employee's Social Security number.
• Update your State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) rate.

If you have more questions about SSN or any QuickBooks-related concerns, don't hesitate to post here again. I will always be around to help you answer them. That's it for now. Stay safe!

Per the Social Security Administration website, and I quote,

"Specifications for Filing Forms W-2 and W-2c Electronically (EFW2/EFW2C)
If you still do not have an SSN when your Form W-2 report is due, complete the SSN field by entering all zeros in locations 3 through 11 of the Code RW, Employee Wage Record. The paper Forms W-2 you give to employees also may have all zeros in block d, Employee SSN."

This is not a workaround, it is an explicit direction from the determining authority. You have deprecated a necessary feature. You may find the information quoted above at this link: https://www.ssa.gov/employer/critical.htm

Once again the QB staff is missing the point.  We all know how to enter a SSN correctly.  The issue is that we can no longer enter all zeroes and have applied for printed on the W-2s - per IRS code.  QB is creating more work for most of us as we will have to find another method to prepare those W-2s.