I have the same error!  What is the fix for this?

My problem started last month when I upgraded QB.  Then it really got bad last week when I updated payroll.  Now there are orange exclamation marks beside almost every employee.  There is now this new requirement for phone numbers and email addresses.  Updating payroll, as suggested, does not help.  That's what caused the problem last week, but just to check, I updated payroll this morning.  I'm using the most recent payroll version, so there isn't an update...  Some of the exclamation marked employees have no phone number and no email address, some have one or the other, and some have both.  WHY??  First, why is this required all of a sudden?  Second, why doesn't QB recognize a phone number?  I've tried both with and whithout the hyphen, but neither works.  I don't know what more to do, but the orange exclamation beside 95% of my employees in one company, and ALL in the other company is enough to make me start looking for another option for payroll.  Can you PLEASE fix this

Hello everyone. I hear your sentiments about these new required details in your employees' profiles.

The Required Info fields and tabs can vary depending on your payroll service. If you see this tab, you'll have to fill out the First and last name, Social Security number, Date of Birth, Home Address, Main phone, and Main email fields.

I recognize the convenience of having a way to remove these requirements from your employees' profiles. Rest assured that I'll relay this message to our team in concern here on my end and add your vote for this one. Ideas like this help identify the features our customers want the most for consideration in future enhancements.

Here's how you can share your thoughts and ideas through your account:

1. Click the Help menu located at the top.
2. Select Send Feedback Online then click Product Suggestion.
3. Type in your feedback or feature request.
4. Click the Send Feedback button.

Additionally, you can check out these articles to learn more about the different reports in QuickBooks Desktop and how you can customize them:

• Understand reports
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop

I'll be around to help if you have any other questions about managing your QBDT account. Just let me know by leaving a reply below. Keep safe!

The whole employee center is PAINFULLY slow ever since I've had this issue.  I have an error (exclamation point) next to several employee's names because QB is saying required info (phone #) is missing.  I have entered and reentered the phone numbers several times and it does not work.  This is a BUG in your software functionality.  Please fix it!

Same here.

I am not sure why but I went to the 1st three tabs and just tabbed through all the entries.  Then, in the additional info tab, i added the phone number again under the heading main phone.  I have no idea why this worked but I had 3 employees that would not work until I did this.  So frustrating that I even had to do this.  It deleted all my employees phone numbers and I had to re-enter them all.

Your government dreams of this stuff. Other payroll providers DO require this information for employees (or will soon) because the federal government regulates HOW software companies administer these services to the public. Non-compliance means payroll companies lose the privilege of supplying a payroll service.  It's inconvenient because too many CPAs just want to pop in a name for some quick accounting instead of collecting or reporting thorough information. So when the IRS and other federal entities perform audits the lack of form data combined with increasing money laundering scams and activities means stricter compliance on software companies who provide a possible vehicle for these activities to exist.

This is definitely a bug.   I have only 3 employees.  2 of us have the exclamation point.

I have the exclamation point.  I added the company phone number but when I hit add, it still says I need to add it.  Yet, the phone number is saved when I log out of my information.  The exclamation point doesn't go away.

The other employee has a different situation.  My predecessor put him in Quickbooks twice.  Once when he was a contractor (now inactive) and then when hired in 1996 as an employee.  Quickbooks doesn't like that his social security number is assigned twice.   I can't fix that and therefore cannot save any new information with this bug.

If you're having issues with the phone number not resolving the exclamation point error, go to the 3rd tab and put a phone number in the top left blank. You have to choose Main Phone in order for the exclamation point to go away.

I spent 6 hours this weekend getting rid of the exclamation points, but that's not my main nitpick. The problem is that the Employee Center is HORRIBLY slow when I'm on the screen where I can select employees. It takes me 6 minutes just to open the Employee Center, when it just took a few seconds before. I'm guessing it depends on how many employees you have?

Also, if it's really slow for you, if you size the Employee Center window smaller, it actually moves somewhat faster, which makes no sense to me. It makes me wonder if it's doing some sort of calculation behind the scenes whenever you take any action in there.

The 3rd tab "Main Phone" worked.  Until I got to several employees that don't have that option.  I hate QB right now.

LollyNino_C did you EVEN READ what you are "responding" to? This is specifically regarding Intuit's requirement that all employees have an email address AND phone number entered in their profile! This comment applies to the orange exclamation points coming up for EXISTING employees, does not have anything to do with adding a new employee.

Sorry.....  I guess I made a mistake. 

Kevin_C what does "Understand Reports" and "Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop" have to do with this issue???  ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, that's what... Intuit's lack of response to the specific issue is bad enough! Having "QuickBooks Team" respond to legitimate issues/concerns/complaints WITH NONSENSICAL, INAPPLICABLE responses is INFURIATING!

Oh, by the way, you can run a customized report to determine XYZ.... that's a fact, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do with this SPECIFIC issue!

Thank you for this.  IT Worked for me!

I updated Quickbooks this morning and they appear to have rolled back the update. My Employee Center is back to the way it was before, and it's speedy once again!

Thank you for this info!!  Mine is back to normal as well.  The Edit Employee screen no longer has the "required" fields!  QuickBooks worked pretty fast on that one!

I am having the exact same issue. Jeeze, Quickbooks is getting impossible to use, on top of doubling the cost to use it.

Quickbooks is getting harder and harder to deal with! I have one company that does online quickbooks - it’s a-whole-nother level of ridiculousness!!! So infuriating!!! And this new employee thing is MADDENING!!!!

This just happened to me in 2 different client's QB files today! So frustrating. When I contacted the Intuit help desk and explained that I wanted to know how this requirement could be disabled the guy told me that the information was required by THE IRS....ummmm no dude, it is not. He insisted that it was so I asked for the IRS Publication so I could read about it and he directed me to THIS FORUM! I told him I would just be entering made up information. The work around I have found is to upgrade the QB file to 2023 (these were both 2021) and so far that seems to have worked but only time will tell. Good luck to all who are trying to navigate yet another weird and unhelpful QB feature. In my opinion, Intuit is trying their best to make Desktop difficult in order to push everyone to QBO, which is 1000% times worse than anything I have ever seen in Desktop.

This feature needs to be removed.

A real pain in the A..

Sometimes I need to print a check quickly and may not have all the "REQUIRED" information.

Greetings, @DJH911. 

I can see the convenience of excluding the required field in employee information in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

An employee information form ensures that you have current details on employees, including contact details and emergency contact information. 

Nonetheless, if you prefer not to have them when you print your employee paychecks, we urge you to submit feedback to our product developer thus they can consider adding them to the next product feature update.

Follow the steps below:

1. Choose the Help option.
2. Pick the Send Feedback Online option.
3. Select the Product Suggestion option. A pop-up window displays.
4. Enter your feedback suggestion.
5. Click the Send Feedback button. 

Our Product Development team receives your thoughtful

comments (QBO) through the feature request link: QuickBooks Feature Requests website.

On the other hand, there are several third-party applications available that can help automate this process. We have available third-party apps that can integrate with QuickBooks Desktop, then look for apps in the Search bar or browse them in the Browse Categories dropdown. You can also visit directly through this link: QuickBooks Desktop Apps store.

Feel free to reach out anytime if you have more questions

or need further assistance with QuickBooks Online. Your success is our focus, and I'm here to help make your economic management as smooth as possible. We Wish you all the best in your business endeavors!

@ChristineJoieR  RE: An employee information form ensures that you have current details on employees, including contact details and emergency contact information. Collecting and updating these forms will allow you to keep track of your employees and reference details periodically.

What forms are you referring to, that the employee will collect? I don't think anyone asked anything about forms. They asked why the QuickBooks program is now, suddenly, requiring information be put into QuickBooks that is not required by any agency anywhere to be payroll compliant.  Do you even understand the issue?

Will this affect the ability to print W-2s???

If it's true that upgrading to version 2023 does fix this, well, HOW DOES IT FIX IT?  Is the employee demographic data no longer required in version 2023?  Or does the upgrade fill in bogus default data to fulfill the requirements?  What in the world is going on here?