Multi state workers / Roaming employees

Welcome,@xtremecrane and thank you for coming to the QuickBooks Community for assistance. I have some insight on updating your employee's work location to pass along.

When you run payroll, the system will take the current information when deciding what taxes to deduct. As long as you make sure the work location is correct, the taxes will be accurate. 

If you have any other questions, please let me know below. I'll be here.

How do I assign two different work locations (different states) for hours worked in one week? I thought I could only assign one work location to an employee at any given time and can only change that location once or twice in a year.

I have employees who may be in TX one week and NM the next or partial week in each all in same pay week.

Hi @xtremecrane.

Thank you for getting back to me.

In order to have two different states, you would need to run multiple payrolls. First, run one with one work location and input the hours worked there. Next, you would change the work location and run an unscheduled payroll for the hours in the new work location. 

If you are using Full Service Payroll, you can update the work location as many times as needed. 

For more information on updating work locations, click here.

Let me know if you have any trouble getting this setup. 

Hi.  I have employees who live in MA and work in MA and VT during the same pay period.  I process MA payroll and liabilities first.  Then change the employees state to VT.  Then process the VT payroll and liabilities.  However come end of year I always have to manually adjust the MA and VT withholdings with the help of my accountant.  

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@Anchorage1 wrote:

 However come end of year I always have to manually adjust the MA and VT withholdings with the help of my accountant.  

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The withholding every pay period may be too low because each of the 2 paychecks in each pay period may be in a lower tax bracket. Really it should be adjusted every pay period. Isn't there a big hit if you do an adjustment only at the end of the year?

We have employees in MA and CT.   If they work in both states during a particular week I create two checks.  I list the whole week in the timesheet, and when I create the CT check I make not of the TOTAL of all the taxes.   I have an excel spreadsheet that I plug the TOTAL numbers in, and then I remove the MA line items and update the taxes according to the formulas.    Then I create an unscheduled MA check, again noting all the taxes.  I then remove the Plan 125 line items, child support, levy etc (only want to take those once), remove the CT line items, and adjust the MA & Fed taxes accourding to the excel formulas.     In the end the two checks FED should equal what the TOTAL was, along with Medicare & Socical SS.    The State Taxes will now reflect the amount of tax based on the bracket for TOTAL wages paid in both states.   I am searching for a developer to see if they can create an add-on to help with this process.

Thanks for reaching out to us, @thrjdevco.

Multi-state employment is already supported in QuickBooks Online. However, consulting with an accountant or a tax professional is highly recommended to help set up the employees correctly so QuickBooks will calculate and deduct taxes accordingly.

Also, you can contact our QBO Support Team with regards to your payroll questions. From the Help menu, select Contact us to connect to a payroll representative.

You can read out this article to know more about multi-state employment payroll situations in QBO: About multistate employment payroll situations.

I'm adding this article about reciprocity agreements between states to know where employees pay taxes: Multistate withholding matrix.

Drop a comment if you have any other questions or clarifications, I'm always here to lend a hand. Take good care.

Would this mean that after you ran the first payroll, you'd have to go back and adjust the timesheet for the second payroll? Wouldn't that mess up your total hours worked when it comes to quarterly reports?