When importing payroll from desktop to online did paycheck data come over?

Hi there, campbellironworks.

Thank you for visiting the QuickBooks Community.

Please knows that when migrating from QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) to QuickBooks Online (QBO), some of the payroll info doesn't transfer properly. Such as Paychecks are moved as regular checks to keep your financial reports accurate. You'll need to enter past year-to-date payroll info for each employee. This will make sure that everything is accurate for year-to-date (YTD) totals on your employees’ pay stubs. 

Here's how: 

1. Select Payroll and click Overview.
2. You will see tasks you need to complete on your TO DO. When you're done adding your business info, it's time to tell us about your team. Choose Let's go to start adding your employees. Include all employees who no longer work for you. Make sure to set up each pay item, deduction, contribution, and tax showing on their pay stubs or reports.
3. Enter your employee's info. Complete the onscreen steps 1-8.
4. Once done, enter how much you paid the employee this year. Under Step 9, How much did you pay [employee] this year?, select +Enter [year] prior pay details. 
5. Answer 1-2 questions to select the time period the employee got paid.
6. Enter how much you’ve paid your employee so far this year in the Year-to-date totals as of today column.
7. Be sure to include all types of compensation, deductions, taxes, and company contributions.
8. If you're in quarters 2 - 4, enter the amounts you paid the employee for previous quarters in the Year-to-date totals as of [date] column.
9. Repeat the steps for all employees you paid this year.

After that, you also have to enter your company wages and taxes for each payday in the current quarter. This ensures you’re not missing any historical paychecks: You can refer to the following article and proceed to step 4:  Set Up a Prior Payroll. 

Furthermore, you need to record tax payments made in order to complete the payroll setup in QBO.

Lastly, you can open this article to see several payroll reports that you can use to view useful info about your business and employees: Run payroll reports.

Please keep me posted here on your progress with this, I want to make sure you're taken care of. Wishing you all the best, campbellironworks.

Thank you for your prompt reply - this information is very helpful! I have been able to enter year to date values  for my employees but ran into an issue. In QB desktop we had an employee who needed to pay us back for charging personal expenses to some of our vendors. We used expense reimbursement and negative values to reduce their paycheck each week. When migrating to online the amounts came over as a positive and the system will not allow us to change those to a negative value so the year to date values are off. How can we fix this to ensure that the employee's year to date is correct? For example, the employee had a negative $900 value in QB desktop and that value came over as a positive in the expense reimbursement pay type. Can you help us get this fixed correctly? 

Hi there, Campbell. I have an alternative way to fix the value of the employee's paycheck and make sure that their YTD is correct. 

Since QuickBooks does not allow adding negative hours into the employee's paycheck. The system uses these hours to calculate the employee's compensation for the payroll run.

Instead, you only need to input the actual hours worked by the employee to get the correct YTD amount. Otherwise, if you need to deduct an amount from their pay, set up a deduction item for it.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Workers or Payroll menu, then select Employees.
2. Click the employee's name.
3. Tap the pencil icon in the Pay section. Scroll down on the deductions section, then select +Add deductions.
4. Choose Deduction/contribution.
5. Enter the details of the deduction then click OK.

To learn more about this, see the following links about the supported pay types in QBO: Add or change pay types.

Here are some articles that you can refer to dealing with payroll issues in QuickBooks Online:

• Resolve payroll problems.
• Pay a regular paycheck.

Keep in touch if you need more help with this, I want to make sure you're taken care of. Thanks for reaching out, wishing you all the best.

I was able to create a new deduction and modify the earnings to correct the wages. Additionally, I also made it through the rest of the setup for the company. The next problem that I am having is related to finalizing the taxes for my employees. Tax exemption information did not come over for a few of them and when I try to update their information, I keep getting an object not found message. It's also important to note that I keep trying to add Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave to their records which the company pays 100% of the cost for both but am not certain if it's correct. I am wondering if the object not found message is tied to that tax or if I missing something else. Could you please let me know if others have experienced this issue and how they fixed it? Thank you.

I was able to create a new deduction and modify the amounts so that the wages tie out. Additionally, I also completed the remaining payroll setup taxes, etc. However I am now faced with another issue that I can't seem to resolve. Some of the tax exemption information for my employees did not import into the online system. When I try to update that information I am receiving an object not found message and cannot save the updates. Our company also pays the full cost of Massachusetts Paid Medical and Family Leave which is appearing but I am wondering if that is causing the issue. Could you please let me know how to resolve this problem? I would like to start paying employees through the online payroll but without this information I cannot do so correctly. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Thank you for providing us with detailed information about the issue you're encountering, Campbell.

There are some cases when you add tax information of an inactive employee, and the error message "Object Not Found" will show up. 

Let's just ensure that the employee you're trying to add a tax to is active by going to Payroll, selecting Employees, and checking your employee's Status. And if your employee is active, this might be a browser-related issue. 

Know that QuickBooks Online uses browser cache and cookies to run faster, but these can also block web pages from loading, which might be the reason for the error you're account is experiencing.

I'll help you clear your browser's cache and cookies to fix them. Let's start by accessing your QBO account via incognito mode. This doesn't store cache files that may cause odd behaviors when running a web-based program. Below are the shortcut keys you can use:

• Google Chrome: press Ctrl + Shift + N
• Mozilla Firefox: press Ctrl + Shift + P
• Microsoft Edge: press Ctrl + Shift + P
• Safari: press Command + Shift +N

Then, try adding the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave to your employee's tax info again.

If this works, clear the cache of your regular browser to eliminate piled-up data. If the issue persists, you can use another supported browser or device. Might be that the current one you're using has a temporary issue with the program.

After performing the steps, if the error persists, I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Online Support. 

They have resources that can help you pull up your account and look for the leading cause of the error by doing a screen share session.

I'll also add these articles to help you fix the common errors QBO: 

• Fix errors when you move from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.
• Resolve payroll problems.

You're always welcome here in the Community if you have additional questions about QuickBooks. We'll be happy to extend a hand. Enjoy your day, and take care always!

We spent two hours on the phone with QB support to try and resolve this issue. They also sent an additional hour trying to resolve the issue and then notified us by email that it was resolved. See chat 1598555852. They claimed the issue was that some employees were listed as customers and needed to be deleted. However, their fix resulted in active employees being made inactive with a truncated last or first name. Additionally, we reviewed all accounts, lists, active and inactive employees, vendors, customers and every setting we could review to see if we could locate the account that was causing this issue. We have run 3 payrolls in QB online and are forced to use QB desktop to calculate the taxes and ensure our employees are paid correctly. With the sunset of QB desktop fast approaching I am concerned this will never get resolved and we will have a major problem with employee pay going forward. Can someone please look at our online setup and advise on how to fix the issue?
We also cannot print a paycheck correctly in the online system (we don't use QB checks) and have found this is a recurring issue that has not been addressed yet. Very frustrating and customer service thus far has been sorely lacking.