W2 preparation

Thanks for visiting us today, @kathyr650.

I'll share the steps on how you can process your Form W-2s, excluding your household employee. You'll want to make that employee inactive by the time you process your forms. Then, make it active again after you've submitted them. Making your employee inactive will not delete the employee's paychecks but for unemployment tax purposes.

On the other hand, you can de-select the employee name when you create your Form W-2s.

Here's how:  

1. Go to the Employees menu at the top menu bar.
2. Select Employee Center.
3. Double-click the employee name.
4. Put a checkmark on the box next to Employee is inactive.
5. Click OK.

Here's how it looks like:

After making your employee inactive, pull up the form again. Once done, go back to the Employee's menu and mark the inactive employee active again.

I'm also adding these handy articles that will help you along the way.

• File your W-2 forms.

• W2 form boxes explained.

Keep me posted if you still have questions or concerns with the forms or payroll. I'm always here to help.

Making the employee inactive has no impact on whether or not they get a W-2. It would be a terrible thing if it did. I've no idea why this was suggested by Intuit.

However, when you launch the W-2 feature there is a list of employees who have payroll data during the year. You can de-select the employee there.

Since you're sure the employee should not get a W-2, you can ignore any message you get about skipping the employee.

The problem with this bad QuickBooks advice is that this does not result in the ability to e-file the W-3 and W-2. 

Thanks for your advice! I have a question about a terminated employee. This is our first year to work with Quickbooks payroll service. Somewhere I was told to keep "Status: terminated" employees active until the end of the year so they will receive w-2 and for end of year reports. 

Is this correct ? Or can I make the terminated employee "inactive" but yet any time periods that paychecks were issued will be reported ? I hope I'm clear in my question!