Employee Center

Hi there, Sbow12. I understand that this freezing issue may cause difficulties in performing business tasks. I also appreciate all the steps you've done to get this working. Let’s perform some troubleshooting steps.

Before we start, I've listed some possible causes of why QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) Enterprise freezes:

• The company file name is too long.
• Damaged or missing QBWUSER.INI file.
• There’s corruption on your hard drive.
• The program files or QBDT installation may be damaged.
• Damaged Windows operating system.

Please ensure you're running the updated Windows version to the most recent release of QuickBooks Desktop installed to keep your software updated, so you always have the latest features and fixes. Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu at the top.
2. Choose Update QuickBooks Desktop.
3. Go to the Update Now tab. You can select the Reset Update checkbox to clear all previous update downloads.
4. Click Get Updates to start the download.
5. When the download finishes, restart QuickBooks.
6. Accept the option to install the new release when prompted.

If the issue continues, you can run the Verify Rebuild Utility Tool to resolve most data integrity issues in QuickBooks Desktop. You can use this article for the detailed instructions: Verify and Rebuild Data in QBDT.

In case the issue persists, I would encourage you to perform the other two solutions in this article: Fix issues when QuickBooks has stopped working.

Please come back and keep us posted on your progress in getting this issue resolved. Keep safe!

We are experiencing the same issue which started Monday 6/12/23.  I initially called Intuit and they insisted it was because we were running the 2022 version of Enterprise and told I needed to upgrade to 2023.  They are wrong! 

As we use Right Network to host our QBDT,  they have run every scenario to resolve the issue.  They tried a rebuild.  Tried upgrading our version from 2022 to 2023.  Tried removing our Avatax app.  Copied our file and opened it on their system.  Tried creating a new user.  Copied our file and ran it through their advanced file doctor.  Nothing fixed the issue and they really through everything at it over several days and approximately 5 hours.  I love Right Networks technical support and wish Intuit would follow their example.  Right Networks has now escalated the matter to Intuit as they have several customers reporting this problem.

This issue is only affecting the employee center.  It doesn't affect the payroll center or any other center.  For now, I've found that I can get to my individual employees easier by selecting a report / list / employee contact list.  I can double click on an employee name and it brings me into the employee record without the delay.

We are experiencing the same issue. It is taking a ridiculous amount of time between clicks. The problem is primarily in the employee center. All things suggested have been completed and nothing is resolving this issue. Please fix or advise asap, as maintaining employees is becoming very difficult.

I understand how latency affects our navigation, @Camiejean123. I'm here to address your concern regarding the Employee Center constantly freezing in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

As per checking, we received a volume of customers reporting the same issue when trying to access the Employee Center in QBDT. Rest assured that our engineers are aware of this matter and are diligently working on a fix so you can get back to business seamlessly. 

In the meantime, I recommend reaching out to our customer support team so they can add you to the list of affected users. This way, you'll be notified via email when any new information becomes available. Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu and click QuickBooks Help.
2. Select Contact Us.
3. Provide a brief description of your concern, and click Continue.
4. Log in to your Intuit account, select Continue, then Continue with my account.
5. Enter the single-use code you received in your email and hit Continue.
6. Choose between Chat with us or Have us call you.

Moreover, you'll want to invite your employees to QuickBooks Workforce so they may access their W-2s and pay stubs. This way, they'll receive an email notification once they are open for viewing and printing.

The Community is open 24/7 whenever you have future concerns with managing your employees. Just leave your question below and I'll respond right away. Be safe.

We are experience the same issue with the employee center. It started yesterday (6/21/23) for us.  I noticed today, it was fixed for a brief time and worked normally again for a couple hours, but then the problem started back up late afternoon.  Nothing was done in the meantime that would have "broken" it again.  

We also notice the window to create a new employee looks quite different when the problem presents. It is extremely bizarre as that window has never changed in years.  When the EE center worked correctly  earlier today, that same window was back to normal.  

We have machines running on both Windows 10 and 11 and all instances are current to date on updates.  There has to be a glitch Intuit needs to fix.  Please keep us updated! 

I'm glad to see you back here in the Community, @jbischoff1214. I appreciate your effort in processing troubleshooting steps to resolve issues that cause QuickBooks Desktop freezing. 

After researching further, I've discovered there's an open investigation into this concern. In that case, I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Desktop Support. It allows them to look into your account and confirm the problem. After the confirmation, they might add you to the list of affected users and receive future updates.

To speak with one of our experts from QuickBooks Desktop Support. Please follow the steps below to contact support:

1. Go to the Help menu and click QuickBooks Help.
2. Select Contact Us.
3. Provide a brief description of your concern, and click Continue.
4. Log in to your Intuit account, select Continue, then Continue with my account.
5. Enter the single-use code you received in your email and hit Continue.
6. Choose between chatting with us or having us call you.

For detailed information, refer to this article: Contact QuickBooks Desktop support. 

I've additionally included a couple of detailed resources about working with employee profiles that may come in handy moving forward:

• Update or delete employee info
• Set up employees

Feel free to click the Reply button below if you have questions about QuickBooks system performance. I'm always here to help. Have a great day.

I am having the same issues but we have found work arounds for most of it. It seems it is just slow when you are in the employee center.

If  you need to get into an employee file run a employee contact list and double click into the employee file.

When entering the time for the week go into employees/enter time/use weekly timesheet.

To get into run a payroll go into employees/pay employees then either scheduled or unscheduled payroll.

Going in these ways it does not run slow, but if you have the employee center open everything runs really slow in the software. I had it open and tried to run a P&L and it took several minutes to open the P&L.

I hope this helps.

this actually seems to work.  I've let my HR person know as she has been struggling the most.  Thanks so much for the tip.

You are welcome.

Have you found a solution? We are having this issue now.

Did you find a resolution? 

Just checking back on this issue to see if there has been a resolution or documented fix for the slow response/freezing when using Employee Center.  We are trying to get added to the effected customer list as well.

Thanks for getting in touch with the Community, bebbs1974 and ttatum94.

I've reviewed our ongoing investigation (INV-89246) and can confirm there's been some updates posted to it while it's still being researched.

If your company file's stored on a local network, our Product Investigations team advises that there's been some identified improvement in application speed by performing a RAM Allocation to increase the application's Maximum Cache.

Here's how to perform a RAM Allocation:
 

1. Close QuickBooks. Confirm it's not running by checking in Task Manager. If you see it active in Task Manager, highlight it, then select End Task.
2. Once QuickBooks is closed, use your Windows icon, then enter "Run".
3. Type in "%programdata%\Intuit\QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions xx.0". Replace the "xx" part of your text with the QuickBooks version and press Enter. If you can't find your program data, you can show hidden files. Steps for doing so can be found on Microsoft's website.
4. Open the qbw.ini file.
5. Press Ctrl + F simultaneously on your keyboard to open the Find window, then find "DBSERVEROPTIONS".
      • If it already exists, increase your initial cache number.
      • In the event it doesn't exist, add a new line above your [LED] tag, then enter
   "[DBSERVEROPTIONS]
   InitialCache=4096M
   MaxCache=0". You'll want to be aware that enabling max cache won't take effect if entered at the very top or end of your file. When you're finished, click Save, then Close.
6. Open QuickBooks and press F2 to access the Product Information screen.
7. Review your Local server information section and see if the changes on your value took place. If not, follow our steps for disabling the hosting, then re-enabling it. This will enable your changes to take effect.
8. Close and reopen QuickBooks.
9. Open the company file and run a Verify/Rebuild to see if your Employee Center window is still freezing.

In the event your company file is stored with Right Networks, our Product Investigations team advises there's been some success with pulling the file outside of Right Networks to use and run payroll.

While our investigation's still ongoing, you can also get in touch with our Customer Care team if you haven't yet and reference the investigation's case number (INV-89246). They'll be able to pull up your account in a secure environment and add you to our list of affected users. This ensures you'll receive email notifications about any updates relating to it.

I'll be here to help if there's any additional questions. Have a wonderful day!

My QuickBooks is having the same issue of the Employee Center being slow and freezing. It's weird that this is only occurring with the employee center and no other part of the program. I have talked to customer service a few times without any help, and I stumbled across this fix looking for answers. I just worked my way through the ram allocation walkthrough and the issue is still unresolved. I did verify the changes took place through the product information screen, but the employee center is still slow and glitchy. Please keep me up to date with any fixes as this problem is driving me crazy. Thanks.

Hello there, @Trailerman. We understand how frustrating it can be when things don't go as planned. Don't worry, I'm here to help you sort this out.

For now, there's an ongoing investigation (INV-89246) about QuickBooks Desktop Employee Center freezing/latency. Rest assured, our engineering team is doing its best to fix this issue.

I'd like to reiterate the workaround provided by my colleague. If your company file is stored on a local network, our Product Investigations team advises that there's been some identified improvement in application speed by performing a RAM Allocation to increase the application's Maximum Cache.

Here's how to perform a RAM Allocation:
 

1. Close QuickBooks. Confirm it's not running by checking in Task Manager. If you see it active in Task Manager, highlight it, then select End Task.
2. Once QuickBooks is closed, use your Windows icon, then enter "Run".
3. Type in "%programdata%\Intuit\QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions xx.0". Replace the "xx" part of your text with the QuickBooks version and press Enter. If you can't find your program data, you can show hidden files. Steps for doing so can be found on Microsoft's website.
4. Open the qbw.ini file.
5. Press Ctrl + F simultaneously on your keyboard to open the Find window, then find "DBSERVEROPTIONS".
      • If it already exists, increase your initial cache number.
      • In the event it doesn't exist, add a new line above your [LED] tag, then enter
   "[DBSERVEROPTIONS]
   InitialCache=4096M
   MaxCache=0". You'll want to be aware that enabling max cache won't take effect if entered at the very top or end of your file. When you're finished, click Save, then Close.
6. Open QuickBooks and press F2 to access the Product Information screen.
7. Review your Local server information section and see if the changes on your value took place. If not, follow our steps for disabling the hosting, then re-enabling it. This will enable your changes to take effect.
8. Close and reopen QuickBooks.
9. Open the company file and run a Verify/Rebuild to see if your Employee Center window is still freezing.

In the event your company file is stored with Right Networks, our Product Investigations team advises there's been some success with pulling the file outside of Right Networks to use and run payroll.

To ensure you’re in the loop for the progress of the investigation, you’ll have to sign up for the list of affected users. I’m unable to perform the process without asking for sensitive information to verify the account.

Contacting our support team ensures your company is added to the notification list in a secure environment. Here’s how:

1. Choose the Help menu in the upper right hand to open the Search window.
2. From there, scroll down to click the Contact us link.
3. Type the issue/topic in the field box and then hit the Let’s talk button.
4. Select how you want to reach out to our support team: Start messaging or Get a callback.

You’ll receive an email once more information is available about the issue.

To get the best QuickBooks experience and optimize the program's performance,  see this article: Manage your data files to fix QuickBooks Desktop performance issues. If you require additional information on a specific payroll activity, feel free to use our online resources. There, you'll find topics about processing payroll, managing workers' data, handling tax notices, and filing forms. 

Reach out to me again if you have other QuickBooks concerns or need assistance navigating through the product. I'll get back to make sure you're taken care of. 

We continue to have the same problem with employe center.  Only help I have found is to repair the file, which I have done a few times in the last week alone.  

Basically you go to programs and apps, find Quickbooks, then right click to uninstall.  When the prompt comes up, choose "Repair" rather than uninstall.  It will take about 20 mins to repair and then make you do a restart.  Once you are back in, it will work much smoother than before, though honestly still not as smoth as I remembered.  I do that, it works fine for a couple days, then I find the slow bug is back and I repeat the proces and it improvee.  

Obviously not a permanent fix, but getting us by for now until Intuit rolls out the real solution.  

We too have been experiencing issues with the Employee Center, it appears to have started with the update to the new Employee Center. I have tried the recommended fixes but it does not seem to help at all. I temporarily have staff using the Employee Contact report to edit employees.

I am at a loss as to what else to do. 

Thank you so much for these tips.

QB's problem is AFTER they updated the employee contact information. It is a new design. This is a QB glitch and I am amazed how their QB support team suggests troubleshooting steps instead of addressing a coding issue.

I am also experiencing this since last week. 

I did all the above tests, only temporary work around is to NOT click "Employee Center", and go thru Payroll Center, or Report/List/Employee Contact List. But you can not enter new employees here.

The new column in the employee list, to enter mandatory missing info, is a disaster and should be removed immediately.

I contacted Intuit Payroll Support, many times since last week, and they acknowledge this major issue, and are working on a fix.

I was the one that spoke with Data Services (John), regarding INCREASING Server cache to 4096 / Unlimited.  I can assure you all that this Does not fix the bug in Employee Center, that is now 3-4 weeks old.  Investigation: INV-89246 is still ONGOING -- and by my estimate, is impacting HUNDREDS of Quickbooks  Desktop customers, after a Quickbooks Desktop update that was applied about 6/12/23.   We are still awaiting a solution to the bug that make EMPLOYEE CENTER so slow that it takes 4-5 minutes to open.   

====================

Mike K. -- Quickbooks Enterprise Desktop 2023 IT consultant

This is getting really old! This has been going on for 3-4 weeks and still no resolution. We pay to have a working system and your system doesnt work, especially for a company that uses this to for employees/payroll 10-20 new hires a day. We are having to pay people overtime to do their job done because your "engineers" cant find the problem. Well clearly if after 3 weeks they cant find the problem, you may want to consider other options like new engineers or a new system. Quickbooks has too many glitches and the solution is always to upgrade and spend more money- the more money you spend the worse it gets. After 20 years and three weeks without a working system- I am praying my owner decides to switch programs!!! 

Is there a solution yet? 

   Debbie

Thanks for chiming in on the thread, @PLMDV. 

I can see the urgency of getting the issue in the Employee Center fixed, so you all can get back to business. However, the investigation for this one is still ongoing. Our engineer is diligently working on it. We appreciate your patience as we investigate this further.

 As of now, you can try performing the process of adjusting the maximum cache. You can refer to the detailed steps provided by my colleague DebSheenD above in this thread.

If the issue persists, I suggest contacting our Technical support team. This way, you'll be included in the list of affected users and notified via email once there's an update or resolution.

Here's how:

1. Click the Help option at the top menu bar, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Select Contact Us and then enter that you get Reminder prompts and Continue.
3. Then Message an Agent or Talk to a Specialist.

Please check out this article for QuickBooks support hours: Contact QuickBooks Desktop Support.

I'll provide you with this link which includes different articles about managing workers and employees in QuickBooks Desktop: Manage workers and employees - QuickBooks - Intuit.

Keep me posted if you need further help. I'll be happy to assist you always. Keep safe!

I am equally annoyed as all the other posters.  As I said, our current workaround is to repair the program every 3-4 days.  This works and keeps it good for about 3 days and then it reverts back to the slow crap where employee center takes several minutes to load and it then unusable anyway after that. 

I have gotten so used to it not, but this is not a permanent fix!  Fortunately the repair process only takes about 5 minutes on my machine so a short inconvenience.  On my staff's machine, which is much older, it takes 20 plus minutes though so he gets very snooyed when he sees the problem rear its head again, but I taught him my trick.