Payroll printing out of order

Hello there, @pmoran1.

I understand the importance of printing your pay stubs alphabetically in QuickBooks Desktop. However, the option to sort your pay stubs alphabetically isn't currently available. QuickBooks Desktop sorts your to-be-printed pay stubs by date.

Alternatively, you can use a third-party application with this function to proceed with your goal. You can check out the QuickBooks Desktop App Market and browse for an app.

When running a payroll report alphabetically, ensure that the first column displayed is the source name to ensure it sorts this way. However, there are specific reports that you can't sort alphabetically because of their group filters. For example, the Payroll Summary report is organized to view your payroll information and its summary better. Payroll Transaction Detail and 401(k) Retirement report are sorted alphabetically but grouped by date, which is crucial when reviewing each transaction. However, you can still achieve this by manually sorting the reports in Excel. You'll need to export the report in Excel and sort them manually.

Moreover, you may also want to consider inviting your employees to the workforce. This way, they can view their W-2s and paychecks online.

Tag me in your reply if you have other queries about managing your paystubs. I'll be around to help you. Have a good one!

Thanks, but I am using QuickBooks desktop not QuickBooks Online.   I don't think this would work for QuickBooks Desktop.

Hi there, @pmoran1.

Thank you for replying, and I apologize for the confusion. I have updated my comment above to match the QuickBooks Desktop printing issues.

We're always here to ensure you stay updated with QuickBooks Desktop's latest updates. Please don't hesitate to comment below if you have further concerns about QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. I'd be more than happy to assist.

@pmoran1  When it comes to QuickBooks Desktop and printing, whether stubs or paychecks, it is only ever incidentally in alphabetical order.

To explain: In your Preferences under the Edit menu, you can go to the Payroll & Employees section, Company Preferences tab, to tell your Employee Center to alphabetize in one of two ways. These are in order of last name, or in order of first name.

When you go to print paychecks, or any variety of paystub, they will print in the order they were created.

If you created your entire payroll in one run, they will print alphabetically, whether by first or last name according to your settings.

If you processed your payroll piecemeal, then they will print in the order you created them. This is probably not going to be in alphabetical origin.

I dunno what's up with the 401(k) report.

When I am creating paychecks, I do them in one run. Some are highlighted blue and some yellow. The ones in yellow are the ones that print out of order. I went into Preferences and checked and there isn't an option to print in any order. It's just annoying they used to print all in order and now they don't.

@pmoran1  Generally, they only highlight in yellow when you've changed something since last time you ran payroll; hours, for instance. Blue is for no changes.

When you say that the yellow ones print out of order, do you mean that the yellow ones are printed first, or last, or something else entirely?

If you provided the alphabetical list of your employees compared to how they actually print out, along with which were yellow and blue, it's possible we could logic out exactly what weirdness QB is up to; otherwise, I've only got poorly informed speculation to go off of. Their programming gets interesting at times.