Item not appearing in tax total

Hello there, @DeadWood AI. 

In QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), payroll liabilities will not appear if there's no scheduled payment frequency. Let me help you set up one by following the steps below.

1. Go to Employees and select Payroll Center.
2. Click Manage Payment Methods.
3. Select the Schedule Payments box.
4. Click the payroll liability, then Edit.
5. Select a frequency in the Payment (deposit) frequency.
6. Click Finish.

Additionally, you may notice that your payroll liabilities are incorrect in QBDT. Don't worry. Here's an article to guide you in performing a liability adjustment to resolve them: Adjust payroll liabilities in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Please don't hesitate to visit the Community whenever you need further assistance with your payroll liabilities. We're always here to help. Stay safe.

After looking around and trying some various options, I found what you were describing. It was actually under Change Payment Methods, but I understand now. Strange, I could have sworn that the Administrative Fee was included in the past, but I've only been here for one previous quarter so I'm not positive.

What I did discover, however, is that the Administrative Fee should have been part of the "grouped" state payment: there is a tax liability for a group that includes the State Unemployment Tax, the Investment Fee, some kind of "Surcharge" that I'm not even sure what that is, and the Administrative Fee should have been part of that group all along because it is paid at the same time. I spent too long looking around trying to find out how I can Edit that group and add the Administrative Fee to the group so it is automatically includes in the future, but here's another example of Intuit using different words or terms to describe something than what I use, so I haven't been able to figure out how to Edit a group to include Administrative Fee. If you know of a way to Edit a Payroll tax payment group, please let me know. Thanks.

Hello, @Deadwood Al. Thank you for bringing up the matter at hand. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you. 

Regarding your question about editing a payroll tax payment group, please know that this is not possible. The reason for this is that payroll taxes are grouped for a specific purpose. Typically, when multiple payroll taxes are grouped in a single scheduled tax payment, they are usually paid on the same deposit schedule to the same agency.

Additionally, it's essential to note that tax agencies typically decide which taxes are paid together and whether or not they can be paid separately. Therefore, for more information about payment guidelines provided by a particular tax or agency, please visit the  Payroll Tax Compliance site for your reference.

For your convenience, I have included some material that will help you adjust payroll liabilities when needed. You can do this by following the instructions outlined in the link provided: Adjust payroll liabilities in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Feel free to reach out to us anytime if you have further questions about editing the payroll tax payment group in QuickBooks Desktop. We'll be here to help. Keep safe. 

You said: Regarding your question about editing a payroll tax payment group, please know that this is not possible. The reason for this is that payroll taxes are grouped for a specific purpose. Typically, when multiple payroll taxes are grouped in a single scheduled tax payment, they are usually paid on the same deposit schedule to the same agency.

FYI. Administrative Fee is paid to the same agency and at the same time, even on the same report, as the State Unemployment and Investment Fee, so it would appear that QB / Intuit didn't really set up the group correctly for the South Dakota payroll taxes. That is the reason I desired to change the group by adding in Administrative Fee, a tax that should have been included in the group all along.

So anyway, thanks for letting me know that QB / Intuit has incorrectly created a tax group with no way for the user to fix their mistake.

Deadwood Al,

I agree, this is VERY frustrating that I need to calculate and add this fee to my payroll liability check EVERY QUARTER. There has got to be an error in Quickbooks that this does not populate correctly. Since QB discontinued basic payroll so they can charge through the nose for Enhanced Payroll I was able to run my SUTA report through Enhanced Payroll this quarter (fort the first time). It's crazy how it can create the report correctly, with all 3 State Unemployment payroll fees yet it can't populate the payroll liability check correctly. Quickbooks - please correct this!

Tax liability totals can become overwhelming, and we know tax season brings enough stress, cwsd13. Let me explain how QuickBooks groups and manages tax payments to make your financial reporting more seamless.

As my colleague noted above, tax agencies have unique guidelines for how various tax liabilities can be grouped or paid separately. With this, I recommend browsing the Payroll Tax Compliance resource center to ensure you have the most accurate and up-to-date guidance for your jurisdiction.

Now, let's investigate why those tax fees aren't showing up. Start by carefully examining your payroll liability check, as items or tax fees can be under a different name.  

After verifying that the tax item hasn't been labeled differently, we can explore two workarounds to address this situation. First, manually add tax fees to your payroll liability checks. The second option is to use a liability adjustment to record these tax items accurately.

Additionally, I'm sharing targeted resources to help you master report generation, customization, and Excel export processes:

• Run payroll reports
• Export reports as Excel workbooks in QuickBooks Desktop

You can always share any additional payroll concerns or report-related inquiries. Just drop them in the comments below. I'm committed to providing support and finding a resolution.

to cwsd13

Not sure if this will help you out or not, but I found something when I was restructuring the GL and changed the posting of the payroll accounts.

I had not used QB Payroll before this, and the payroll to GL links were all set up when I got here, so initially I assumed that "whoever" knew what they were doing way back when. Silly me!  The Payroll Item List contained SD Administrative Fee, SD Investment Fee, SD-Reemployment Assistance .... and it also contained SUTA - Reemployment Assistance. After going thru the review when restructuring the GL as related to payroll items, I came to the conclusion that having the "reemployment assistance" item listed twice was the cause of my problems ... so I inactivated the SD Reemployment Assistance, and now I only have three SD "unemployment tax" type items ... the SUTA Reemployment Assistance, the Administrative Fee and the Investment Fee. From what I see on the postings, it appears that this was the problem. I don't know what your Payroll Item List looks like, but check to make sure that whatever you have for State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) isn't inadvertently duplicated with another list item.