Quickbooks is trying to send old payroll checks to Intuit during current payroll run

Thank you for your response. The time and date on my system is correct. I did already attempt to change the 2022 checks from Direct Deposit to live checks exactly the way you detailed. However, when I did this it affected the balance of my account, putting my payroll account register in the negative for the total of those checks.

Thank you for getting back to us and letting us know the result of the previous steps provided, @Franklhats.

When you recreate missing or voided direct deposit paychecks sent to employee's accounts, you need an offset item to zero out net pay amount. Your employee will not get paid again. Before making any changes, make sure to create back up. This way, you still have a copy of the data if something went wrong.

Here's how:

1. From the Lists tab, and select Payroll Item List.
2. Click the Payroll Item in the lower-left corner and select New.
3. Choose Custom Setup and select Next.
4. Click Deduction and choose Next.
5. Enter the payroll item name. You can use Direct Deposit Offset and select Next.
6. For Agency for employee-paid liabilities, leave the top two fields blank.
7. In the Liability Account field, select Direct Deposit Liabilities, then Next.
8. Set the Tax tracking type to None and click Next.
9. Make sure there are no taxes selected, and select Next.
10. Set Calculate based on quantity to Neither and hit Next.
11. Set Gross vs. Net to net pay and select Next.
12. Leave the Default Rate and Limit fields blank and select Finish. 

To proceed, you can correct the payroll liability balances. Refer to this article for the detailed steps in Step 3: Correct the payroll liability balances.

1. Go to Employees menu, and select Payroll Taxes and Liabilities
2. Select Adjust Payroll Liabilities.
3. The Date and Effective Date should match the check date of the paycheck you just created.
4. Choose Company Adjustment.
5. In the Item Name column, select the direct deposit offset item.
6. In the Amount column, enter a negative amount equal to the DD Offset amount on the paycheck.
7. Click Accounts Affected. 
8. Choose Do Not Affect Accounts.
9. Select OK twice.

If you need to contact support, read this article to know the process and check their availability: Contact Support.

Let me know if you need additional assistance about correcting payroll. I'm always here to help. Have a great day.

So here we are a few days later. I followed the instructions step by step here in order to run payroll for my client on time by unchecking "direct deposit" on all of the paychecks that were popping up as a problem. I then followed the instructions on the second response from Ethel and created offsets. Creating the off sets did not solve the problem with my account balance being negative by the amount of the checks that were marked for direct deposit. So I contacted support via telephone and was told that the original problem checks, and now even more as far back as 2021 are considered "stuck" checks and need to be voided and recreated. How can it possibly be that every payroll check that was processed in the last 2 years were somehow submitted incorrectly yet were paid without issue every time? I am concerned as I begin the process of voiding these checks that I am going to do damage to the account further. Is this truly the correct solution?

Hi Frank,

There isn't a need to delete and recreate the paychecks. After creating the direct deposit offset item, edit the paycheck. Then, add the item to zero out the net pay and fix the negative DD liability account. You can follow Step 2 in the correct the payroll liability balances link shared by my colleague Ethel. But before doing so, I recommend creating a backup of your company file.

Here's how:

1. Go to the File menu at the top of your QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) account.
2. Choose Switch to Single-user Mode.
3. Go to the File menu again and hover over Back up Company.
4. Select Create Local Backup.
5. In the window, select Local Backup and then Next.
6. In the Local Backup Only section, select Browse and select where you want to save your backup company file.
7. Set the number of backups you want to keep. This is optional.
8. This runs a test to make sure your backup file is in good shape before you save.
9. When you're ready, select OK.
10. Select Save it now and Next.

If you'd want to have a closer look at your business finances, we have several payroll reports you can pull. Check out this guide for more details: Run payroll reports. 

If you have any other concerns when running payroll or about QuickBooks, let me know by commenting below. I'll always be here to help. Have a great day.

I am having the same problem.  Every week, when I process payroll, it includes data from further back by many months now.  What is going on?  Were you able to get a fix on this @Franklhats 

Hello there, Diana.

I want to ensure you can process payroll without including payroll data from the previous months.

To clarify, have you already performed the troubleshooting steps shared by my colleague DHeraV above? If you haven't yet, I recommend doing it so. I also suggest updating your QuickBooks Desktop to the latest release and the latest payroll tax table to isolate the issue.

If you get the same result, I highly recommend contacting our QuickBooks Support Team. This way, they can further check on this matter and provide in-depth troubleshooting steps to get this resolved. To reach them, you can follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Help icon and select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Click Contact Us.
3. Write your concerns in the description box, then select Continue.
4. Select which one of the support options you'd like to use.

You may also want to run and customize payroll reports to view useful info about your business and employees. You can check out this article for more guidance: Customize payroll and employee reports.

Don't hesitate to come back to this post if you have other concerns or follow-up questions about processing payroll in QuickBooks Desktop. I'm always here to help.

None of the suggested fixes worked.  I called QB and I won't know until next week if the problem was fixed.

We had the same problem since early April.  For us, the problem was that the license key for the payroll module was not correctly changed over when we changed some kind of service with Untuit.  As the license key was incorrect, it saw all the old direct deposits of payroll had not been completed and wanted to redo them.

It took 3 hours on the phone to figure it out.

I would start by checking your payroll license key is correct - you may have the same issue we had.  Check all the license keys while you are at it for good measure.  Good luck.

We are using Enhanced Payroll on QB 2023 Enterprise for Desktop.  We are dealing with this SAME issue this week!  Multiple file rebuilds and the problem persists.  The final solution per Intuit is to send our file to the Data Service Escalator department which means we might not have our current file for up to 5 days!  Crazy.  I think there is something on Intuit's side that is causing a bug, but we have spent hours on the phone with Tech Support (multiple technicians) and all they do is rebuild the file while getting the same two errors.  Our specific errors are:

Payroll Service Data -- Error (2)

APPROVALS ApprovalsDataLayerAdapter::GetTxnsApprovalStatus trying to read approvalstatus TView: 17 txnStatus:2208550000

APPROVALS ApprovalsDataLayerAdapter::GetTxnsApprovalStatus trying to read approvalstatus TView: 17 txnStatus:2208550000

We really need to get this fixed ASAP !

Diana, after you tried all of the suggested "solutions" from Intuit, did Intuit suggest you send your file to them for Data repair?  Did you rebuild your file, and get any errors?  Our 2 specific errors that are recurring are:

APPROVALS ApprovalsDataLayerAdapter::GetTxnsApprovalStatus trying to read approvalstatus TView: 17 txnStatus:2208550000

APPROVALS ApprovalsDataLayerAdapter::GetTxnsApprovalStatus trying to read approvalstatus TView: 17 txnStatus:2208550000

None of this happened until Tuesday, May 2, 2023, when we tried to run payroll.  We are using the Enhanced service.  Just trying to compare notes.  

I noticed that most of these posts are within the last couple of months.  Could this be related to a Payroll Service update that has bugs?  We have not had this particular issue until this week, May 2, 2023.  

This is the workaround I used and it did work though it is a pain to do, if you have a lot of checks.  QB told me that my paystubs were "stuck" but this came out of nowhere and continued with every weekly payroll for a couple of months.  Each week, it pulled data further and further in history.  Personally, I think QB has an issue that needs to be fixed and it has nothing to do with us.  Anyway, once I did this workaround, I couldn't tell if it fixed it until I ran the next payroll.  

CTRL F > Filter on Detail Level > Summary Only > Filter on Online Status > Online to Send > Click Find

All the checks you see supposedly, are stuck, which I don't believe, but that's neither here nor there.  You have to click on each check, open it up and add a compensation item and leave the amounts/rates blank.  Save it and close and continue down the list and do this to every check.  Once you've completed that, you go to the beginning of the list (again) and click on each check and remove that compensation item you added.  Once you've removed all of them, send your payroll data (zero payroll is fine).  The next time you send payroll data, there shouldn't be any stuck checks/paystubs and old history with the payroll.

I hope this works for you!

Thank you for this tip....we can try it before we send our file to the Quickbooks "hospital".

No, and I don't think I'd ever send my file to QB/Intuit!  I can't say I have that trust in them.  Although, if you did send it, you could keep a backup and when they send it back, check to see if it worked.  Either way, you're out 5 days of work and that's not acceptable.  Did they ask if they could share your screen and see exactly what is happening?

I didn't get any error codes, it just kept pulling old data with $0 amounts.  It would take forever to generate the file because it was pulling over a year's worth of information to send.

Beyond frustrating!! 

Oh WOW !  I am not pleased at all with Intuit's Customer Service.  They keep you on the phone for hours, purporting to troubleshoot, and nothing is resolved, and then sometimes your call is dropped and you have to call in again, to get, yet another representative.  Beyond frustrating!

When you call, ask for a code so that if you have to call back, you can reference that code and not have to explain everything all over again (hopefully).  Amazingly enough, I have received better customer service and help using online chat instead of a phone call.  

Yes, we now have two case numbers for this one issue.  I have used the chat help before, but I think this issue is beyond the realm of comprehension for most of the help desk folks that they have.  It is so frustrating, and causes my Company to lose money with all the down time!  Sorry to vent.

@Franklhats did you ever get this problem resolved?  We are having the same issue.  I finally unchecked the DD boxes on the offending checks, but also now have that negative balance in our payroll account in QB showing up.  I will be working with my bookkeeper this week to see what we can do to "fix" the problem so the balance is back to ZERO, but I am afraid that we might have duplicates of payroll / deductions / taxes, etc. 

Have you had any instances where this doesn't work? I tried this last week and it worked, but I just tried it for the stuck check I have this week and it didn't.

Good day, @hoosierdp.

I appreciate you joining this thread. I'd love to help you, but I need more information to do that.

May I know your concern or issue regarding payroll checks? Were you unable to run payroll or receive any error messages? What troubleshooting steps have you made last week?

Any additional information is appreciated. You can also add a screenshot so we can get on the same page. If so, please don't forget to cover any personal information involved.

I'll be on the lookout for your response. Take care.

Unchecking the DD boxes did work, however, we needed our bookkeeper to "fix" the negative balance in our payroll account, so that our books would balance correctly.  It was a lot of time and effort (and money!) spent on this issue.  We are moving to a 3rd party payroll service outside of Intuit moving forward.  It really has been over 2 months of nightmares for myself and my team.  

I go into the Send Payroll Data area and it says I have modified 1 paycheck, even though I haven't. When I try to send the payroll data, I get an error saying Problem adding new data to QB - Inconsistent data in downloaded transactions. This has been happening every week since the aforementioned payroll update.

The only solution that works is contacting Quickbooks chat and having them fix the data on the back-end.

Are you speaking of your payroll account as a bank account, clearing account, or direct deposit liability account?