Requiring employee personal data in QB is a hard "no."

Well, the date of birth requirement is fairly ridiculous, anyway.

Personally, I see no reason not to just pick a date to stick in there. I favor the fifth of November.

What's Quickbooks going to do, wag their finger at you? The government has no forms requiring that.

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

I recognize the convenience of having a way to remove these requirements from your employees' profiles when adding them to QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT). 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.

On the other hand, check out this article to help track your payroll and employee expenses in QBDT. This will help you focus on the most essential information to your business: Customize payroll and employee reports.

I'll be around to help if you have any other QuickBooks-related questions. Just let me know by leaving a reply below. Keep safe.

I have complete confidence that you will actually relay what people are saying here. You certainly aren't taking a reply template and slightly tweaking it to better suit the conversation.

Definitely.

My point is that employment and payroll information is shared on a need-to-know basis, and seeing as we don't process our payroll through QB, y'all don't need to know.

My "product suggestion" is mind your business.

-Mark

You wrote both:

"If QB won't run our payroll as a result we will be having words, some of which will not be appropriate for general audiences." and

"and seeing as we don't process our payroll through QB"

So that's a little confusing. I wouldn't think that if you don't use the payroll feature in QuickBooks that it would even try to require any information on an employee record, save the employee name.

The SSN and the Employee address is used for tax forms like the W-2 and many state unemployment forms, so it sort of is required for payroll process.

Also, if you print paychecks the employee address is usually printed as well to help identify the employee in the case there are two with similar names.

Sorry, it's me playing fast and loose with the word "process."

We subscribe to the QB payroll service so that we can input and record paychecks into our internal financial records.

The actual processing and distribution of paychecks is done by a third party payroll processor, which also executes and maintains the tax and legal data for withholdings, direct deposit, tax filings, etc. and they issue the W2s.

That's why those of us who do our payroll way are not comfortable giving QB data they don't need.

-Mark

RE: We subscribe to the QB payroll service so that we can input and record paychecks into our internal financial records.

I don't think you need to subscribe just to input paychecks. See https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/payroll/set-manual-payroll-without-su...

I expect that these sorts of restrictions and messages won't nag you in the manual payroll case, but lately Intuit has been rather lame about their updates, not taking into account various cases such as manual payroll, existing users with many employees and, well, you get the idea...

QuickBooks has no business REQUIRING employee birth dates, even if you are submitting payroll reports and forms through QuickBooks.  The Social Security Administration already has birth dates of anyone in their system.  I am wondering if QuickBooks will let you submit W-2's after the end of the year without those exclamation marks being taken care of on the birth date??  I understand the need for address and social security numbers that appear on the W-2's, but not the birth dates.  This is another overstep of INTUIT requiring information to line their own pockets by partnering with companies offering 401(k) plans.  Not appreciated by our firm at all!  We are looking for other providers that don't HIDE the purchase of a desktop version; and now requiring birth dates of employees.  Someone will eventually start a class action lawsuit on this company.  Newsflash to QuickBooks . . . a LOT of your desktop subscribers DO NOT EVEN HAVE ACCESS TO THE INTERNET, AND MANY DON'T WANT THEIR BOOKWORK AND EMPLOYEE DETAIL FLOATING "IN THE CLOUD".  YOU ARE DIGGING YOUR OWN GRAVE.  I got off subject here a bit, but this is outrageous!

I played around a bit more, and funnily enough, at least on Quickbooks Accountant Desktop, they don't *really* require any of that, except when creating an employee for the first time.

What they don't tell you is that you can remove the data afterwards with no repercussions; they still ask you to put something in whenever you go into the employee information, which is a little annoying, but the option to 'Maybe Later' is available. You just have to put something in during the initial creation of the employee profile, even if you take it back out afterwards.

This worked with both the social and the birth date, at any rate.

RE: you can remove the data afterwards with no repercussions; they still ask you to put something in whenever you go into the employee information, which is a little annoying, but the option to 'Maybe Later' is available. You just have to put something in during the initial creation of the employee profile, even if you take it back out afterwards.

This makes these changes even stupider, IMO. They're basically admitting these fields aren't required to be entered to pay an employee, but still nagging the hell out of everyone for no reason at all. Someone needs to be fired over this nonsense.

I tend to look at this the same way as I do the solicitor companies that offer to 'handle' the annual LLC renewal, for an extra $100.

It really does feel like QuickBooks is putting out (technically optional) lines just to see who bites and hands over their information.

Shady as hell, but, I suppose, probably legal.

Quick books is asking for those of us who had been purchasing their software for many years, to leave them.  Plain and simple.  Raising their rates sky high and making us do these things like putting in DOB'S in order to give them more information than they already have.  and then we need to call because nothing is working correctly.....  Totally agree with Carolyn5555

I looked the link you included to make this change, as we also run payroll for internal use with a third party PEO, but the Manual Payroll option is grayed out - can't select it - now what?

Hey there, @txtdk. Thanks for joining the thread.

I'd be happy to help you change your payroll preferences in QuickBooks Desktop. 

To manually run payroll, we need to ensure that your payroll service key is removed. This will prevent the Manual Payroll option from being grayed out in the Company Preferences section.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Employees menu and select My Payroll Service.
2. Click Manage Service Key.
3. Select the service name then click Remove.
4. Hit Yes to confirm.

Once you've completed these steps, you can proceed with setting up manual payroll:

1. From the Edit dropdown menu, select Preferences.
2. Click Payroll & Employees, then select the Company Preferences tab.
3. In the QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Features section, check the Full payroll and the Manual Payroll boxes.
4. In the Get payday peace of mind window, select Next and then Activate in the confirmation screen.
5. Click OK to apply the changes.
6. Select OK to exit out of the preferences window.

Before you set this up, make sure to update your version of QuickBooks so you have the latest fixes and improvements.

If you want to get a closer look at your business' finances, there are several payroll reports available that provide useful information about your business and employees.

Feel free to reach out if you have any other QuickBooks-related questions. Just leave a reply below. Stay safe.

Now QB won't let me add employees until I complete the "required" section.

How do I turn that off?

Just got off the phone with customer service and they tell there is no workaround.

In fact, even if we cancelled our payroll subscription and manually entered the paychecks we would STILL have to input that information.

What in the literal [Removed] is wrong with this company? Did you hire Elon Musk to run it?

I told you the language would not be fit for general audiences and here it is.

My guess we'll be cancelling our subscription. This sucks, and thanks for making my job harder 'cause the powers that be are arseholes.

I tried that and it's worked so far.

I input the data, cut the check, take out the data, and the employee remains.

Wow do I hate this company lately.

We tried that as well as a "workaround" to be able to cut the employee's payroll checks. However we have a business that closed this quarter so we have to do the w-2's now. QuickBooks will NOT let us run the W-2's without putting in the required information. This is the most ridiculous "update" QuickBooks has ever issued in their existence. This is going to cause so much havoc come year end. 

QuickBooks is data mining.  I made up a date only to get rid of the orange circles.  I keep my employee records as thin as possible using this program.  And don't forget, when you open the program, there are automatic intuit programs running in the background.  intuit sees all you do.  

intuit is data mining.  When you open the program, in the background, other intuit programs are running, too.  When I open my program, the first thing I do is stop all background programs, I input as little employee data as I need and I never backup my data files to their online servers.  We gave intuit way too much power and they have way too much information.  The online version is even worse.  intuit sends financial reports to the online client's.  What the heck is intuit doing looking at people's individual data files?  And this is intuit.    

IT IS SO RIDICULOUS! We're a union company and the NYS W-4 form does not ask for a birth date. Some of these guys work one day and disappear but BECAUSE of this nonsense - I can't even add them to my employee roster unless I make up a birth date for them. WE don't even process our own W-2's - our accountant does... Quickbooks told me there is not workaround right now. TYPICAL... QB trying to fix something that isn't broken. So glad we pay so much for this crap

This should only be required if the employee has a benefit program!

We also do not like putting DOB in QB.  Only, in file folders is personal information except SS# and address, because of W-2s.  Once you put DOB a scammer can open all kinds of accounts using the stolen information.  

I agree with you, and activity looking for a new payroll desktop payroll software.  But many banks now are starting to be doing direct deposit, my bank told me if I would bring them the information in HTML then they can do the direct deposit.  But I have clients that still print there payroll checks, which all my clients could do that also, and just mail them their checks.  QB keeps getting more costly, and with the ecomomy being so bad I hate to have to charge them more when they are struggling already. Their QB online sucks.  Ypu cannot get the same reports, very limited.