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Preview your W-2s

by Intuit•293• Updated 1 week ago

Getting your employees’ W-2s right is important. You can preview your W-2s before they’re filed with the government and sent to your employees. Here's what you can do in the preview W-2:

  • Review employee and business info
  • Review wages and other items reported
  • Report health insurance (QuickBooks Online Payroll only)
  • Report retirement plan contributions you track outside of QuickBooks (QuickBooks Online Payroll only)

Step 1: Access your W-2s

Select your product below to preview your W-2s. 

Note: Not sure which payroll service you have? Here's how to find your payroll service.

You can preview your employees’ W-2s anytime of the year.

  1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product Open this link in a new window
  2. Select Filings. 
  3. Select Resources. 
  4. Select W-2s. 
  5. From Employee W-2s, select Manage W-2s on W-2 Copies B, C, and 2 (employee) for the current year.
  6. Select View then print the W-2s.

You can preview your employees’ W-2s each year, November 7 through December 15. 

  1. Select Employees and then Payroll Center.
  2. Select the File Forms tab.
  3. Select View/Print Forms & W-2s.
  4. Enter your payroll PIN.
  5. Select the Preview W-2 Information tab.
  6. Select Preview All Employee W-2s.

Step 2: Check your W-2 info

Check the following details on your employees’ W-2s for accuracy:

Business info

  • Your EIN (Box b)
  • Business name and address (Box c)
  • State account numbers (Box 15)

Employee info

  • Social Security number (Box a)
  • Name (Box e)
  • Address (Box f)
  • Box 12 for employer-sponsored health insurance has amounts, if needed
  • Box 13 for retirement plan is checked, if needed
  • Box 14 for fringe benefits has the correct descriptions and amounts

Wage and tax info

Make sure the year-to-date wages and tax amounts look correct.  You can compare these with a Payroll Summary or Payroll Details report for the year. These may not be the final amounts, since you might have more payrolls to run this year. 

Step 3: Fix info if needed

Check out the following articles to help you make any changes: 

Step 4: Report health insurance or retirement plans on your W-2s (QuickBooks Online Payroll only)

If you need to report employer-sponsored health insurance amounts in Box 12DD or 12FF, or you contributed to a retirement plan that you tracked outside of QuickBooks (Box 13), you can add this info to your W-2s. 

  1. Follow this link to complete the steps in product Open this link in a new window
  2. Select Filings. 
  3. Select Resources. 
  4. Select W-2s. 
  5. From Employee W-2s, select Edit Box 12/13 on W-2 Copies B, C, and 2 (employee). 
  6. Enter the amounts, or select the checkbox in Box 13 column for each employee needed. 
  7. Select Submit.

Result

You can preview and verify W-2s for accuracy before final filing and distribution.

QuickBooks Desktop Payroll AssistedQuickBooks Online Payroll CoreQuickBooks Online Payroll EliteQuickBooks Online Payroll Premium