How do I backdate changes for all transactions to the beginning of the year for employee expense and tax accounts

Hi there, @77broncogirl. 

Welcome to the Community. I can assist you with backdating changes for all your transactions up to the beginning of the year for employee expense and tax accounts.

Here's how you can backdate, view and edit your current payroll preferences to the beginning of the year:

1. Select the Gear icon at the top, then click on Payroll Settings. Once you are there, you can see which Expense and Liability accounts are affected when you create a paycheck, make a tax payment or create a deduction. This is a great starting point for drilling down which Payroll Expenses or Payroll Liabilities will reflect on your Profit & Loss or Balance Sheet reports.
2. Select Accounting Preferences. Choose your desired account name from your Chart of Accounts from the drop-down.
3. Select OK after choosing all your desired accounts.
4. You will be prompted to update Classes if the class feature is turned on.
5. Make sure to enter the starting date in order for the information to reflect.
6. Click on the update button.
7. You will receive a confirmation screen that your accounting preferences have been updated.

The change of settings affects future transactions. However, you have an option to apply these changes to your past transactions too. 

That should do it, @77broncogirl. Please know that the Community has your back should you have any questions. Have a great day!

It does not give me the option for the effective date or when the changes should take place.

Hello @77broncogirl,

It's good to hear from you again. Allow me to step in for a moment and provide some clarification on why you can't specify when the changes should take place.

I'm happy to know that you've already tried BettyJaneB's awesome answer. The most likely reason you can't see this option is that it only shows up when you've recently (at least one month from the current date) created a payroll check using these payroll items.

To resolve this, we could make a dummy paycheck, then delete it after we made the changes. Let me walk you through that process.

To make the dummy paycheck:

1. Click Workers in the left pane, then Run payroll.
2. On the Run Payroll page, select any of the available pay schedule.
3. Hit Continue.
4. Enter today's date in the Pay date field.
5. Select one employee.
6. If the employee is hourly paid, enter a sample amount of hours in the Hours field. However, if the employee is salary paid, then proceed to the next step.
7. Click Preview payroll, then Submit payroll.
8. Hit Finish payroll.

To delete the dummy paycheck:

1. Click Workers, then Paycheck list.
2. Change the date range if necessary, then select the paycheck you want to delete.
3. Select the paycheck, then hit Void or Delete.
4. If the Has this check been cashed? window shows up, just choose No.
5. Click Continue.
6. Mark the checkmark box to confirm the deletion, then click Delete Paycheck.

After creating it, just repeat the steps provided by my colleague and I'm confident you'll be able to get this option. For additional insight, I'm also including this helpful article: Payroll accounting preferences

That should do the trick! Keep in touch if you need more help with applying the changes, or if there's anything else I can do for you. I always have your back and is always happy to help.

Thanks again for reaching out, cheers to a wonderful week ahead.

Hi @AldrinS

I am having the same issue, and tried creating & deleting a dummy paycheck. The prompt to change existing paychecks still doesn't come up for me. 

I even tried undoing the new chart of accounts w/specific expense line items that I set up...doing another dummy paycheck.... and then redoing it again with the correct chart of accounts... but I still am not getting the prompt.  

I've been trying to fix this for 2 days now.. and I haven't been able to....

Hello there, renej.

I appreciate you coming back and sharing the outcome of the steps you've tried above.

I want to make sure this gets taken care of. Since the steps above didn't work, I recommend reaching out to our Care Support Team. They have extra tools such as screen sharing that can help you backdate changes for transactions.

Here's how to get their contact information: 

1. Go to https://help.quickbooks.intuit.com/en_US/contact
2. Select  QuickBooks Online.
3. Select a category under “What can we help you with?”.
4. Scroll down the page, then click the Get Phone Number.

I'll be around here in the Community, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any other concerns.