QB Enterprise and reporting agent

You’re in the right direction for help, @kedaniels.

Let me give you some insights on how you can be a Reporting Agent to e-file payroll tax returns on behalf of your clients.

Beforehand, you’ll want to make sure to get the latest payroll tax table update and double-check that QuickBooks Desktop is updated to the latest release.

Moreover, you’ll have to complete and submit IRS Form 8655 to each client for whom you will e-file. Creating an IRS e-Services account and submitting your e-File Provider application are the next steps in applying to take part in the IRS e-file program. Pass a suitability test after that.

To complete and submit your IRS Form 8655, you’ll need to download the IRS Form 8655 and enter the information in the Taxpayer and Reporting Agent section. Please ensure that the Authorization of Reporting Agent to Sign and File Returns section (line 15) is complete. Otherwise, you will be unable to e-file your client's forms.

Feel free to check out this article for the following steps to take to complete the process of becoming a Reporting Agent.

Furthermore, I added this article for your reference when e-filing your forms in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT): E-file and e-pay federal forms and taxes in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Enhanced

Let me know if you have other concerns with payroll. I’m just around the corner to assist you. Stay safe!

I have done the Payroll Updates for the latest tax table. The 8655 has already been completed and sent. I file as reporting agent for about 40 clients using QB Desktop so I'm familiar with the process.  I have just never used it with QB Enterprise before and can't figure out why the reporting agent option is not available to me.

Thanks for following up with the Community, kedaniels.

Since you've already completed your IRS Form 8655 and all other necessary steps to e-File payroll tax forms as a Reporting Agent, but don't see it as an available option, I'd recommend getting in touch with the IRS directly to verify if everything's in order on their end.

In the event they confirm you're already an established Reporting Agent, please update me here. If you need to submit a new application, you can find detailed steps for doing so in our E-file tax returns for clients article.

I'll be looking forward to hearing back from you. Have a lovely day!

The IRS has nothing to do with the option being available in QuickBooks. In the Company screen, when I go to auto fill for the forms. I can check the "reporting agent" box but all the fields are blank. When I go to file forms in payroll, there is no reporting agent forms. As I stated it works fine in my Desktop version. I must be missing a setting in Enterprise, can anyone help me out with this?

Thank you for the update, kedaniels.

I see that you've been reporting on behalf of your clients. At this point, it's best to contact our QB Desktop Payroll support to check this further. They can use more tools to gather more data and investigate this.

On the other hand, if you need references for QB Desktop Payroll, just visit the main support page and click More Topics.

Please don't hesitate to reach back out if you have other questions in mind.Take care and have a good one.

Thank you so much for this response. I'll try it Monday. Nobody else seemed to understand the issue and was pointing me to IRS, etc. Much appreciated.

Yea, for some reason Intuit employees generally don't know how QuickBooks works. I'm not sure why they're OK with this, but they don't seem to care in the least.

@JessT  RE: At this point, it's best to contact our QB Desktop Payroll support to check this further. They can use more tools, like for screen-sharing, to gather more data and investigate this.

Why would you send the OP to do this? There's nothing wrong. QuickBooks is behaving exactly as it's designed to. It's been just like this for over a decade. I don't know why I know that and you don't...

Hello there, @BigRedConsulting.

We appreciate you helping us resolve QuickBooks users' concerns here in the Community.

Yes, you're right that QuickBooks is behaving exactly as it's designed to. However, we sometimes send our customers (i.e., OP) to contact our Customer Care team to further investigate their concerns. The Community is a public forum, and we're unable to pull up their account to check.

Thank you for being the best part of QuickBooks. Take care, and I wish you continued success.

@Rea_M 

RE: However, we sometimes send our customers (i.e., OP) to contact our Customer Care team to further investigate their concerns.

Doing that while not first describing to the customer that QuickBooks is working right and what to do to fix it (no account information is needed to do that) is just a waste of time for the customer. Regarding this particular post, there is no need to investigate anything.

RE: The Community is a public forum, and we're unable to pull up their account to check.

To check what? In any case, account information does not matter in this case. It is clear enough that the OP has an Accountant subscription and uses it with their client's files locally, and also why it's not working with Enterprise, based on the original description of the issue. There is no need for any sort of clarification or account information in order to answer the question.

Thank you for your inputs, @BigRedConsulting.

I'd agree that the customer's concern would be handled better if all necessary details were shared within the Community.

On the other hand, the previous agent may mean the customer can contact our support if they need further help with the issue.

We appreciate your feedback and thanks for being an avid Community contributor!

I also thought my question and was pretty clear ans that it had to be a simple answer l was just missing something never having used enterprise for payroll. Your explanation was very clear. Thank you.

@Jovychris_A   RE: I'd agree that the customer's concern would be handled better if all necessary details were shared within the Community.

They were shared, in the OP first post. If you read it, you will have all you need to know to figure out why the OP is seeing what they're seeing.

Do you really not understand what they are asking?  You are of no help.  THE OPTION TO FILE A REPORTING AGENT 941 IS NOT SHOWING UP IN THE QUICKBOOKS FILE.  It literally has nothing to do with the IRS.  I am having the same issue, and I am a reporting agent currently for many clients.

@ssdyad 

Based on my experience, the agents here know very little about how QuickBooks works.

See my first answer above.

The option will appear only after you have validated your Enhanced Payroll for Accountant's payroll subscription using the version of QuickBooks you're using. If you have not, open your subscribed company file using the current QuickBooks version (or a copy of it) and validate it by getting payroll updates.

We have several clients now that QB has steered towards purchasing QB Enterprise versions and are running into the same problem not being able to provide the service to E-File payroll tax forms because the 2023 Enterprise versions don't offer the Reporting Agent version of tax reports.  Not sure why you would have designed a program like Enterprise that wouldn't talk or be compatable with the Premier Accountant version so that businesses can share their info with ease and allow the tax professionals the ability to seemlessly provide e-file services without going through extra hoops.

I appreciate your response to this inquiry as it's one I'm currently facing. This fix did not work for me, and I think it's that our Enterprise client is using their own QB payroll subscription, which shows as QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll, rather than our firm's subscription showing as "QB Enhanced Payroll for Accountants" in the other file copy that I upgraded to QB Enterprise as per your instructions. Since this client is signed up for direct deposit, I cannot remove the existing payroll subscription under Manage Service Key and replace it with my firm's subscription. I'll have to call QB for that. Any other ideas in these circumstances? I restore a QB Enterprise backup from the client every two weeks for payroll processing as they are working in a live file continuously.

We appreciate you joining the thread, jhirschi8.

We'd like to know if you receive an error message when removing the existing payroll subscription under Manage Service Key and replacing it with your firm's subscription. Any additional details or screenshots will be greatly appreciated, as they will assist us in identifying the root cause of the issue and providing you with the correct information.

Moreover, you may add your client's company to your payroll subscription. Replace the service key from Enhanced to Enhanced for Accountant in the Add to Subscription Number field. Check out this reference for detailed instructions: Add a new company to your payroll subscription.

You'll want to learn how your client can add you as an External Accountant in their company file. Please refer to this article: Set up an External Accountant User in QuickBooks Desktop.

The Community is available 24/7 to help you. Kindly comment below if you have further concerns. Take care!

Why is payroll agent not appearing as an option in Quickbooks Enterprise. Recently switched to it and now cannot see reporting agent on 3 of my 4 computers?? 

Welcome to the thread, DPMARTON. 

I'm here to get the help you need about payroll agents not appearing as an option in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise.

As mentioned by BigRedConsulting, to access the option, you'll need to validate your Enhanced Payroll for Accountant's payroll subscription using the version of QuickBooks you're currently using. In case you haven't done so, you can open your subscribed company file with the current version of QuickBooks (or a copy of it) and validate it by getting the latest payroll updates. Once you've done that, the option will become available to you.

To know more how to e-file federal payroll tax returns as an accountant on behalf of your clients, visit this article for a guide: E-file payroll tax forms for your clients.

If you have further questions, let me know by commenting below. I'll be more than happy to answer them for you. Have a good day!

kedaniels--

I am hoping you could help me. I am an accountant working on year-end payroll reports. I,  like the other users, have always used the reporting agent reports, without issue. I have just downloaded QB 2024 and each client I have tried does not have this feature nor is it available under payroll set up. I understand your reasoning from prior posts, and it makes sense. However, I am not quite sure I understand the process you gave to fix the problem, i.e. the "subscriber" log in... Could you please help solve this issue?

As mentioned in other posts, QB support is absolutely useless, has zero knowledge of quickbooks functionality, let alone accounting, and always misses the mark about what it is I am trying to ask. 

@jchristian 

When you open a client's file and create payroll from with it, you will see the special Reporting Agent interface if QuickBooks knows you have an active Enhanced Payroll for Accountants subscription.

In turn, QuickBooks knows you have such as subscription because you have opened your company file - the one containing your subscription information - and validated payroll. When you do that, your subscription is saved on your computer associated with your new QuickBooks 2024 version.

Until you do that, when using a client's file only the features that are included with the client's subscription will appear.

So, to get the Reporting Agent features to appear, open your subscribed company file in 2024 and validate your payroll subscription. Then close the file and open a client's file and then you should see the features that are inherited from your Accountant Payroll subscription.

@BigRedConsulting My clients that upgraded to Enterprise all seem to have the issue where my Accountant payroll subscription is not recognized so that I can e-file payroll reports as reporting agent. I do not currently have any QB files in 2024 Enterprise where I am the Admin and solely work on the file, so I am not sure how to validate my payroll subscription. I did open a client that I have total control of payroll and are under our accountant's payroll subscription using 2024 Accountants desktop, validated, then opened enterprise again...no change. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!