So, after how many years of making Quickbooks, they still can't format a payroll summary without splitting columns ?

Thank you for your feedback, KYCPAFIRM.

I see how convenient it is if there's a page break option on the payroll summary report, especially when there's a lot of data. While this isn't an option for now, I would recommend sending feedback about this.

1. Click on Help.
2. Choose Send Feedback Online.

If you have other questions in mind, feel free to go back to this thread.

So in what world would I want to have the hours of an employee to be at the far right side of page 1, then the rate and wages paid to be on the left side of page 2?  This seems like a very simply desirable behavior.  Do not split employee payroll columns between pages.  For years this eludes the development team ?  Nobody has ever complained of such?  Not much data if we just used 3 employee payroll summary in portrait format now is there?  I do not find hitting the complain & be "send feedback" ignored button as solved.

I simply makes no rational sense why this simple, most commonly used report cannot be auto-formatted better.

@KYCPAFIRM 

RE: It is always a major pain in the proverbial sphincter to print out a payroll summary without it splitting an employee across 2 pages. Try it landscape, hurray, now the 3rd employee gets split across 2 pages. 

Yes, it's a pain. The smart page breaks feature you mention only works for horizontal breaks, not vertical breaks which is what this report needs.

The trick is to make the columns the right width so that three of them - for one employee - fit nicely on a page with a little room left for variance:

When you adjust any of the column widths on that report, you'll get a message asking "Set all the column widths to be the same size?"  Answer Yes.  Then Print Preview the report to ensure they're the right width so that each employee fits on a page, with a little room left on the right margin, but not so much that a 4th column will appear. Then memorize the report, which memorizes your custom column widths, and run it from the memorized reports list in the future.

RE: the "SUMMARIZE PAYROLL DATA IN EXCEL" template STILL DOES NOT WORK with new Office 365 AFTER YEARS@!#@!! . I have to use a edited "FIXED" version somebody else shared. Yet you keep overwriting it with your BROKE version with each payroll update.

Yes, it's been about three years now, and Intuit reps here on the forum have consistently posted that engineering is working diligently on it. Of course that is a lie. They're not working on it, or it would be fixed.

Yes, I fixed it. The link to the fix is: BRC Summarize Payroll Data In Excel – Fixed! 

To avoid the payroll update breaking the fix, put the XL template file on your desktop or other preferred location and then double click it to launch the feature.

RE: Do you even have a development or research team?? It's not that hard to fix an excel template...

Intuit does, but they apparently don't care to fix it. I find it rather odd that it's been three years and they haven't done anything. I fixed it in about two hours.

Sadly i know the whole drag this way that way.. yes to apply to all columns..  Countless hours wasted over a year's time and so many reports..  When is should be an obvious.. "hey programmers, this don't look right" is in order.

I don't know why it would take hours to set the column widths to an appropriate width. I did it in about a minute. It's quite simple...

No, really.. I am talking about over the course of a year, the time wasted adjusting columns for every client, every payroll report.  If you added all of this senseless time spent it would amount to hours, and it is all because a program cannot simply administrate a page break properly.  This is something that should just work without tinkering.  Should be as simple as.. portrait or landscape, shrink to fit tall or wide as current buttons are available.  It should determine the optimal output and NEVER split an employee across a horizontal break.  Over 20 years of software design.. it's about time to fix this.

I don't disagree with you. It shouldn't require fiddling around.

THANK YOU AGAIN to BIGRED for providing the solution to this annoying issue.   You should Sell it to Intuit!   They should pay you big bucks and post it as the solution.

THANK YOU AGAIN to BIGRED for providing the solution to this annoying issue. 

RE:When you adjust any of the column widths on that report, you'll get a message asking "Set all the column widths to be the same size?"  Answer Yes.  Then Print Preview the report to ensure they're the right width so that each employee fits on a page, with a little room left on the right margin, but not so much that a 4th column will appear. Then memorize the report, which memorizes your custom column widths, and run it from the memorized reports list in the future.

Only that doesn't work.  I can adjust the columns till the cows come home and memorize the report till I'm blue in the face but as soon as I close it and or rerun it the columns adjust right back to where I moved them from...  What am I missing?