Retrieving past payroll data from Enhanced Payroll?

Hi there, @tyleranne06.

When something happens to the hard drive, it would be uneasy to retrieve the files stored in it. You may want to reach out to your IT professional to recover it. You may also look for any recent backup copy from your external so you can restore them in QuickBooks Desktop.

As another option, you can prepare historical data in an Excel file. Then, use a third-party importer tool. Otherwise, I'd suggest recreating these paychecks. We have an awesome guide that explains how to enter the information with ease. Check out this link: Recreate Paycheck in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. 

You can also check out this article to see the lists and transactions you can import using IIF files: Export, import, and edit IIF files.

Please come back and post a comment below if you need more help with restoring your files. The Community is always ready to help.

The link you provided details how to enter information for past Direct Deposit paychecks. Is there a way to enter all of the paper paycheck information for 2021? I need to be able to create all of my end of year tax forms. I have the employees' pay stubs for the year showing the gross, net, and all taxes withheld. Is there some way for me to get that information back into QB so that I can create my tax forms? Thank you for your help!

Hello there, tyleranne06.

Thanks for providing detailed information with your concern. I'd like to reiterate what LieraMarie_A answered. You'll be able to retrieve payroll by recreating paychecks. 

Reply to me or reach out to us again if you need more help with QuickBooks. We're always here to offer our assistance.

Hi @LieraMarie_A , @DebSheenD , or QB colleague that has expertise in this matter,

I have QB Desktop Pro & Enhanced Payroll, and I am having the same issue here. My old QB Desktop Pro company file is on a computer that is no longer working. So I am working with the latest backup company file that is missing the last 2 payrolls I did in December 2023 (last month), and I am attempting to restore them.

I have followed all the steps in the article you mentioned: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/product-setup/recreate-missing-voided... on 1 paycheck (to see if it worked, before doing the others), sent the payroll data to Intuit, and I saw in the progress status windows that there was some "payroll copying" happening, and even got success messages from Intuit after sending the payroll data. So far, it sounded good.

However, after that operation complete, I am not seeing any changes on my end:

• The initial paycheck I had sent to Intuit in December has not been restored.
• The paid liabilities from December connected to this paycheck have not been restored either. Instead, the payroll liabilities that got created after I followed the steps to recreate the paycheck outlined in the article above are showing up under the "Pay liabilities" tab as if I had not already paid them in December. 

The article does not detail how things are supposed to look like in QB after completing the steps but it looks like nothing "sync-ed".

Also, I contacted Support by phone before doing all this, and the person I talked to did not know how to fix this, and they didn’t seem to be able to forward me to someone that did. I had to look for the answer myself, and found this.

So how do we fix this now? e.g:

• Restore the paychecks
• Restore the payroll liability payments

so my account looks correct, and my taxes can get calculated properly?

I need to file the Q4 tax documents by January 31st (a few days away), and I don’t want to do this at the last minute so a fast & accurate response is needed. If you could please have someone on your team that has expertise in fixing this issue contact me at the phone or email connected to my Intuit ID ASAP, that’d be the best. If not, an answer here now is 2nd best.

Thank you for your help,

Chamsi

After posting the above, I found this article https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/employees-and-payroll/deleted-payroll-data-enhance... that might be able to help:

• Restore the paycheck (manually)
• Restore the payroll liabilities (manually)

A few questions came up:

• What should I do when QB prompts me to send the payroll data to Intuit after this manually recreated paycheck? 
• Should I not send it? If I don’t send it, Intuit might give me an error issue the next time I want to use payroll as it happened before. In which case, how should this be handled?

In any case, I will try this & hope this will help me & everyone reading this.

With that said, I am not sure if the last payroll data sent to Intuit from the paycheck that was recreated its going to create issues now. 

• Can I delete that paycheck, even though its data was sent to Intuit? If you could please let me know how to handle this, that would be great.

Thank you for your help,

Chamsi

Let's sort out your missing payroll data, Splenium.

Missing direct deposit paychecks need to be recreated with zero net pay because the total amount should reflect in the direct deposit liability check. It'll help balance your check register, and make sure your employees aren't paid twice.

May I know if you completed Step 3(correcting payroll liabilities) after recreating paychecks? Since this step will show the balance to be paid. To complete the process, you need to follow Step 1-4 in the article. Here's how:

Step 1: Create a direct deposit offset payroll item.

Step 2: Recreate the missing or voided direct deposit paycheck.

Step 3: Correct the payroll liability balances.

Step 4: Send payroll data to Intuit.

After manually entering your paychecks and QuickBooks prompts you, send your payroll data to Intuit for them to sync to your account. Also, you don't have to delete the paycheck. 

Additionally, I'll share this article to help you create, manage, assign, or update pay schedules: Set up and manage payroll schedules.

Comment below if you have follow-up questions about managing your payroll data. I'm here to help.