Employee Retention Tax Credit on 941

Thanks for dropping by the Community, @shirleybornstein.

I'll share some information on how you can claim your ERTC. If you've properly set up and tracked the ERC in QuickBooks, you can check the credit in line 11 of your Form 941. First, run the latest tax table update to make sure your payroll is updated.

Here's how:

1. Go to Employees at the top.
2. Select Get Payroll Updates.
3. Tick the Download entire payroll update radio button.
4. Click Update.

After running the tax update, go back and check line 11c or line 13d of the form.

Additionally, you can use Form 941-X to file the adjusted return or claim for a refund for the 4th quarter. Check out this link for more information on how to take the credits of your 941 deposit: Didn’t Get Requested PPP Loan Forgiveness? You Can Claim the Employee Retention Credit for 2020 on t....

Feel free to browse this link here if you need help with other tasks in QBDT Payroll. It'll route you to our general payroll topics with articles. 

Drop a comment below if you have follow-up questions or concerns about payroll forms. I'm more than happy to assist you. Take care and have a wonderful day ahead.

Thank you for your reply.  

I did the update, and then go to run 941 for 2021 first quarter. However, both line 11 and 13 do not let me override to put in any credit.  It is the same when I tried that back in January to file the 4th quarter 941 for 2020.

You mentioned about setting up payroll for ERTC, can you tell me how to?  Do I need to create new payroll item for that?  2020 credit is 50% of total earning up to $10,000 and 2021 is 70% of total earning up to $10,000.  How do I set that up to get the credit on 941?

Thanks for getting back to us and for updating your tax table, @shirleybornstein.

Let me chime in and add additional troubleshooting steps to isolate this issue. I recommend running the Verify Rebuild tool. This scans your company file for errors and self-resolves it right away. Here’s how.

To Verify:

1. Go to the Window menu and select Close All.
2. Then, go to the File menu.
3. Select Utilities.
4. Click Verify Data.

To Rebuild:

1. Go to the File menu.
2. Select Utilities.
3. Click Rebuild Data.

You can also check this link for more detailed steps: Verify and Rebuild Data in QuickBooks Desktop. 

If you wish to set up a payroll item for ERTC, you can refer to this link for the complete process: Set up an hourly wage payroll item.

I’d also suggest working with your accountant for additional guidance. They’ll be able to provide you with their expert advice on what kind of payroll item to create. If you’re not affiliated with one, you can always visit our ProAdvisor page and we’ll help you find one from there.

Once everything is set up accordingly, you might want to check this resource for reference in filing your 941 in the future: E-file 940, 941, and 944 tax forms.

Keep me posted if you need further assistance setting up your payroll item or managing your taxes. I’ll be around to help. Have a great day ahead and keep safe!

I've tried all of these and it still doesn't let me override those fields.    This is so frustrating.  

I tried all of those things and it still won't let me override these fields.   What now??

I do appreciate your time in performing some troubleshooting steps to get this resolved, @Shari10.

Since the unrecoverable errors persist, I'd suggest contacting our Customer Support Team. They have the necessary tools that can help check this matter further and get this resolved immediately.

Here's how: 

1. Open QuickBooks file.
2. Go to the Help menu, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Click Contact Us.
4. Enter a brief description of your issue, then click Let's talk and then choose a way to connect with us.

For more information on the availability of our support, feel free to check out this article: Support hours and types.

You can check this link for reference in filing your 941 in the future: E-file 940, 941, and 944 tax forms.

If there's anything else that I can help you with about taxes or any concerns with QuickBooks, please let me know in the comment section below. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Keep safe.

I finally was able to make the form 941 allow me to enter the ERTC. Normally if you have sick leave or FMLA credit to report on your 941, it automatically generates Worksheet 1 (the 5th page) which you can input in it your ERTC, and then those credits get to be automatically populated in the 941 form. However, if you don't have sick leave or FMLA credit to report, Quickbooks doesn't generate that worksheet 1.  This is probably a glitch that QB needs to fix. So, to go around this, just put any number on sheet 1 under sick leave or FMLA so Worksheet 1 gets to be generated. Then go to worksheet 1 and input your ERTC credit which will automatically get transferred back to your 941 form. Then make sure you delete the sick leave or the FMLA numbers that you initially put to deceive the system to generate the worksheet 1.

Couldn't get this work around to work for me. Are you on desktop or online?

Hallelujah!  Thanks for the tip, entering $1.00 under additional items under qualified sick leave wages brought up worksheet 1 as the last page of the form.  Was able to input my qualified wages that I manually calculated as I received the PPP loan partially through the quarter and didn’t want to use the whole quarter wages for ERTC, as well as subtracted the amount over $10,000 per employee.  Step 1 on the worksheet was filled out already.  There were some $1.00 amounts in step 2 from the dollar I entered to get the worksheet and then was able to enter the qualified wages in step 3 line 3a or probably 3b and it calculates it out.  You can then go back to first page and erase the dollar and the worksheet is still there with the correct amounts filled in on the 941!  

I couldn't get it to work either.  Were you able to find any other solution?

Good day, @FTOK.

If you already performed the recommended shared in this thread, I'd suggest connecting with our phone support. This way, they can trace where might the issue is coming from and fix it. 

Here's how you can reach out to them: 

1. Go to the Help icon and select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Click Contact Us.
3. Write your concerns in the description box, then select Continue.
4. Select which one of the support options you'd like to use.

Please check out our support hours to ensure that we address your concerns on time.

Should you have any follow-up questions or concerns, don't hesitate to post again here in the Community or leave a comment on this thread. Take care and have a good one. 

Did you contact support and have any success?  I'm struggling with the same issue and the above recommendations didn't help me either..  

To generate Worksheet 1, leave the box labelled "Credit for Sick Leave & Family Leaves Wages" blank, but in the next section down, enter $1.00 in "Additional Items" --> "Enter qualified sick leave wages...".  Then keep hitting next until you go through the whole 941.  On the last page, you'll see Worksheet 1.  Enter your Qualified Wages in the bottom ERC section of Worksheet 1 and it will populate the 941.  But you're still left with $1.00 off, so then after you've populated Step 3 of Worksheet 1, keep hitting "Previous" until you get back to the Interview and delete the $1.00 you initially entered.  The Worksheet 1 will stay populated but the $1.00 will go away.

Very frustrating that it's this late in the quarter and Quickbooks hasn't addressed this bug.

This trick is not working for us.  We are using QBDT2020. Payroll update 22109

Could the update or version be the issue?

Didn't work for us either. I spent 1.5 hours online with QB support. Had them remote into my system and she couldn't figure it out either.  She kept trying different things but it would create other issues with employees net pay. I gave up and filed a paper copy.

Didn't work for us either. I spent 1.5 hours online with QB support, had her remote into my system and she couldn't figure out how to do it. She kept wanting to change Q1 paychecks which would effect NET pay and deductions.  She was at a loss, asked a supervisor with no improvement. She finally told me to contact the IRS and see if I could actually do what I wanted.  I ended up filing a paper 941 form.

Hi SARAASB,

You got the latest tax table, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Since non of the setup work for you, I would recommend checking this with our Support team, so they'll be able to start a screen-sharing session to guide you through the setup. They are open from 6 AM to 6 PM PT.

1. Go to the Help menu.
2. Select QuickBooks Desktop Help and click Contact Us.
3. In the description box, enter something like Employee Retention Tax Credit on 941 and select Continue.
4. Choose Start messaging.

Feel free to visit us back should you need more help with payroll. The Community team will always be here for you.

Thank you for sharing your experience, ignitedsgn.

I know you've already spent time with Support about this matter. However, I would still recommend contacting them to investigate this further.

If you have other concerns, please let me know.
 

Worked for me.  Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So frustrating I also spent 3 hours on the phone with QB. Seems very cumbersome to have to create a payroll item for the retention credit then calculate it per paycheck??  Why can t we just over ride the 941 form?  Now I have to print and mail in 20 941s just for Q1 2021.  I cannot efile??  Horrible service from QB.

YOU ARE A LIFESAVER!!!! THANK YOU WORKED. 

The way that they want the average QuickBooks user to set up and track the wages for ERTC is just ridiculous and fraught with problematic issues.  If you do set this up I have to ask what happens if you end up being ineligible for the credit once you are able to compare your revenues.  Hopefully, you can edit the prepopulated data or you are going to have issues.

It sounds like they just want users to have issues so they have to call support and spend more money to file a proper form 941 for each of the 4 quarters of 2021.  Based on other comments it sounds like even their support team has trouble fixing these issues.

There should be a way to enter the data after the fact like there was in early 2020 on worksheet 1, especially with all the retroactive changes that the US government continues to make to the tax laws.

This worked - THANK YOU!  I spent two days on the phone with quickbooks, updated my server & desktop to the latest version of QB and performed all of the payroll updates, but still could not get Worksheet 1 to pull up.  This hack made it happen - thanks again for posting!