How do I bypass the "tax penalties may apply," screen and enter a check that was written last month?

No surprised system won't allow you to input a post-dated check since you should not be able to do that.

Not clear, did you write the check already and pay it or why must it be dated a month ago if you are just now writing it?  If the pay is for a prior period, that is fine to type that in on the description "Pay for May 1-15th."

Actual checks should be written with the date you write them to send them to someone or a future date is ok but you should not ever write a check with a date in the past, for several different reasons.

Yes, it's a payroll check (to me, from me) that is already physically dated that date.  I started filling it out on that date but desktop payroll stopped working thus I didn't know the dollar amount to make it out for.  So, I sit it aside until I got transferred to QB Online, but then life got in the way and that took a month.

And yes, I totally get that post-dating payroll checks to OTHER PEOPLE is a very bad thing to do.  Completely on board with that.

But realize, that's not the case here.  I'm just a 100% commissioned independent contractor who incorporated and does payroll because lawyers, insurance vendors, accountants and the IRS wanted it that way.  Bookkeeping happens when I have free time, not because it's the 15th.  I also routinely throw my monthly payroll checks in a drawer until the business' cash flow allows me to deposit them.

But back to topic, it's my understanding from Googling this over and over again that the workaround is to enter it as "historical data" in Online but I just can't find where/how to do it because Online doesn't quite look like the pictures on the Intuit help screen.

Looks like the other solution is to just migrate back to Desktop which doesn't tell me when I did stuff.

Hi there, Sid9. 

I can absolutely help you set up your historical payroll in QBO. Please note though, that in QBO, you can only enter payroll from the current year, this is because QuickBooks Online is a could based storage system and we only keep records of payroll for the current year we're in. So with that in mind, please follow along below. 

1. In QuickBooks Online (QBO), go to the Workers menu at the left pane to get to the Employees page.
2. Select the employee to open the information, then Enter prior pay details. 
   
   
    
3. Enter the necessary information.

For more information about the process, consider checking out this article: Set up a prior payroll.

If you need any further guidance, or just have an additional question or two, feel free to post down below. Thanks for stopping by the QuickBooks Community and have a nice evening. 

@Sid9 -

I assume you are getting the tax penalties message because payroll taxes were due based on check date.

So my point is that you are hurting yourself by writing checks with past dates since that creates late taxes. System does not know if you cashed check or not.  System just knows that you owe based on check date.

I would love to have a bypass for this also.  I just discovered an error in the clients books where the check was issued (handwritten) on 11/28 but somehow defaulted to the future date of 12/11 when created in QBO.  So when it was time to write the actual 12/11 check, it appeared to already be done.  I thought the solution would be to delete the misdated check and reenter with the proper date (taxes had not been paid yet), but I kept receiving the tax penalty message.  I didn't care...the taxes hadn't been paid and if I can't get the check to go in on the original issue date, then the tax accruals will appear in the next month which would be incorrect.

Hi there, @vlc95023.

You can follow the steps mentioned by my colleague to enter the correct paycheck date. The check date should be within the tax period.

You can also get help from our live support team to guide you with the process and with your tax notifications. Here's how:

1. Go to the ? Help, in the text box input I need to speak to a human.
2. Enter your concern such as "Record previous paycheck with the correct date and ensure the correct figure in the taxes owed."
3. Click Speak to a human.
4. Select Contact us.
5. Choose either to Send a message or get a Callback.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions.
7. Confirm the request.

I've added this article for your future reference if you want to assess a specific payroll report: Learn about reports to use to enter prior payroll.

I'll be here if you have other questions or concerns. Don't hesitate to tag my name in the comment section. Take care.

This new change is absolutely infuriating...whose business is it that I 'may incur a penaltly'...yes, MINE! LET ME CREATE MY PAYCHECK! I will gladly incur a late fee (almost never happens both federal and state), so long as the register is correct. I was too busy to pay myself late last month, so am catching up now (pay period 11/15-11/30) and it wont let me date the check 11/30, so that the proper 941 and  CA state taxes present properly. Yes, taxes are a day or two late (so what?) but making it so I cannot complete a paycheck with the proper dates is maddening. 'Tell Us Whay You Think!' is a loaded request...considering dropping QBO after so many setbacks disguised as improvements.

"and it forces me to go back a screen. 5/15/20 *IS* the date I need entered into QB for this check, PERIOD. If there's a tax penalty, that's my problem and I'll deal with it. How do I get past this screen and record this payroll check so I can then take care of the 6/15/20 check?"

EXACTLY! Already a day or two late for the E-Pay, but who cares! Now QBO is forcing me to apply a chack date to the IMPROPER period, meaning accrual dates are now wrong, and will need to pay more next month to account for an 'extra paycheck' in that period, all due to this impenetrable web page! Major step backwards, QBO.

Teri- You are aware that QBO Direct Deposit will allow you to complete a payroll for nearly two weeks past the actual pay period? Until this new 'You May Incur Tax Penalties' block, we have had the ability to run payroll and direct deposits this way. Now, with their push towards Full Auto Payroll, they have removed the ability to run payroll on our own schedule, which for a lot of folks is rarely 'on time'.

Keep in mind that although regularly spaced payroll checks for the shareholder of an S coro or LLC electing to be taxed as a corporation that said owner/employee could instead take a single annual paycheck. That being said, where is the harm in dating your paycheck today or some date in the future. Per the IRS the date on the patcheck determines when the taxes are due, the date worked mean nothing. Repeat. Payroll is expensed on the date the check is written and has absokutely nothing to do with when the work was performed.

In regards to the original poster of this thread...you were not forced to switch to QBO when your desktop payroll was no longer supported as you just as easily and far cheaper could have at that point upgraded instead to desktop 2020. There are cautions when converting from desktop to online and one involves turning off payroll in desktop before converting to onkine, and them turming on payroll

@alphawave 
No, I was not aware of this because I am accountant and would never try to do that. However, if I was going to write a check a week or two later, I know the check must be dated the day that I "issue" the check, whether to me or a vendor or whomever I pay. Since I know that taxes are due generally at the same time that I "issue" a paycheck. "Issue" meaning the check date that I put into the system that computes the taxes and thereby determines the date the taxes are due, which may be after check date, but usually close behind since the paycheck date is what drives the payroll tax due date.

@alphawave wrote:

Teri- You are aware that QBO Direct Deposit will allow you to complete a payroll for nearly two weeks past the actual pay period? Until this new 'You May Incur Tax Penalties' block, we have had the ability to run payroll and direct deposits this way. Now, with their push towards Full Auto Payroll, they have removed the ability to run payroll on our own schedule, which for a lot of folks is rarely 'on time'.

---

@Teri  I am not aware of accountants being exempt from making mistakes, but I am glad you are.  For the rest of us, everyone seems to be missing the point that the check was physically issued on the proper date, but was erroneously dated one month in advance within the QBO and not caught until the next check was to be issued.  I was just looking for a way to recreate the check with the proper date but Quickbooks would not allow it even though we were still had one more day before the taxes for that period were due.  And even if the taxes were late, that is the business of the company, not Quickbooks.

@vlc95023 -

I am quite sure I did not say I never make mistakes so don't even have to look back to confirm that.

I can see why "everyone" would be confused by that, since that is not what I heard you say either...

If the check was created in Quickbooks, how could it be dated a month in advance of check date? 

No matter, I am sure this is history by now and hope you were able to resolve your issues with this.

Anyway, I know QB has many tools setup to try to help biz owners stay out of trouble and in payroll

paying taxes late is a big failure for a system if it does not alert you to that problem in advance with

error messages and reminders.  If you think it only takes one day for a company as large as Intuit to

process all the payroll taxes they make payments on, they can't just wait for one guy on the last day.

After wasting 1 hour reading various threads, the only solution I have found is to tell my clients to STOP using QBO.  This is unacceptable!  Now I must commit FRAUD because QBO will not allow me to properly enter a paycheck that was written 10 days prior and not entered into QBO yet.  The net check is always the same, so manual checks get written and entered later.

Thanks for linking in this thread, @ephilyaw.

First and foremost, this is not the practice I want you to experience with our system. But I'm here to yield some learning about how properly create a paycheck in QuickBooks Online. 

If you're using Direct Deposit (DD), you're unable to go through the process. With this, I'd suggest changing it to a paper check. Using a paper check will let you create the ten days prior to paycheck in the system.

You can always run any reports by going to the Reports tab. Then customize it to show specific information. 

I've added articles about handling prior payroll, various tasks for tax seasons, and other topics.

• Year-end checklist
• Set up a prior payroll
• QuickBooks Online Payroll Full Service Hub

Stay in touch if there's anything else you need. I'm always right here to help.

@vlc95023 

"Tax accruals" are entries that create liability on your books to be paid to the tax agencies when due. 

So I would expect that system would accrue taxes based on the check date when input to the system.

These tax liabilities (amounts you owe) BEGIN on the date that wages are paid to employees since QB uses cash-basis accounting. If you are using the system to accrue and pay your taxes, it does not know to do that until you create the check in the system and since checks should be recorded on the day sent, it assumes you are recording check on the day you wrote it and the "tax accrual" is recorded accordingly.

If you wrote a paper check, system has no way to verify what date was handwritten on paper check, so it assumes you are doing correctly = timely.  You would not want the system to compute taxes on a check date in the past since then you would likely already be delinquent on paying taxes on that old check date.

So the "tax accruals" are being created in the correct month based on when check was dated in system.

I saw person below said he used to be able to input payroll checks with dates far in the past. I assume that Intuit realized that was causing problems and stopped that from happening at least in QBO which was designed to be more helpful by automating functions that previously had to be managed by the users.

---

@vlc95023 wrote:

I would love to have a bypass for this also.  I just discovered an error in the clients books where the check was issued (handwritten) on 11/28 but somehow defaulted to the future date of 12/11 when created in QBO.  So when it was time to write the actual 12/11 check, it appeared to already be done.  I thought the solution would be to delete the misdated check and reenter with the proper date (taxes had not been paid yet), but I kept receiving the tax penalty message.  I didn't care...the taxes hadn't been paid and if I can't get the check to go in on the original issue date, then the tax accruals will appear in the next month which would be incorrect.

---

Is there a way to bypass the "tax penalties may apply".  I am tryng to do a paper check dated 12/31/20 which is to me and is basically my 401K contribution for the year.  I do this every year, but forgot due to having Covid and missing a lot of stuff.  Please help.

Hello  there, cod1031.

Override tax penalties may apply screen and submit payroll, and you may need to do a backdated check that will reflect in the W-2 form. This needs to be done by getting in touch with our payroll specialist. They are the ones who can assist you to bypass the tax penalties. 

Here's how to contact them:

1. Go to Help at the upper-right corner.
2. Enter a short description of your concern. 
3. Click Talk to a human. Then, I still need a human.
4. You can then get a callback or send a message to start a conversation with our specialist.

You may want to check about creating unscheduled payroll check in QuickBooks Online. 

Let me know if you have other questions. Take care and stay safe always.

Hi @cod1031 -

This might save you some pain if applicable. If this is employer-paid contribution to 401k, I believe you have until the income tax return deadline to make that contribution since I do that for mine every year.  However, you mention the check is to YOU for 401k which is a bit unclear since if the check was only for 401k, it would not be made out to you and there would be no payroll taxes due.  Just possible solution.

---

@cod1031 wrote:

Is there a way to bypass the "tax penalties may apply".  I am tryng to do a paper check dated 12/31/20 which is to me and is basically my 401K contribution for the year.  I do this every year, but forgot due to having Covid and missing a lot of stuff.  Please help.

---

There must be a work-around that doesn't involve calling a human every time someone makes this mistake.

Can you provide that solution?

I have a friend who recorded the two pay periods (four checks in total) with a January date rather than December when the checks were issued. This error has shifted the tax liabilities and wage expense from 2020 to 2021. She called a human to fix this issue and the QB rep deleted the checks so now 2021 is correct but not 2020.

Any guidance that doesn't involve fraud (i.e. choosing a later date) or contacting a human would be greatly appreciated.

For now, I'm going to attempt a Journal Entry for each check. Hopefully that works.

Hello, @2JZ.

Let me share additional information on how the paycheck date affects the calculation of your taxes.

@john-perois correct! When calculating and posting of your payroll taxes depends on the paycheck date. This is compliance to the rules of constructive receipt, payroll wages that has paycheck dates that falls starting on 01/01/2021 must be reported in the 2021 tax year. 

• 2020 wages should have a 2020 check date;
• 2021 wages should have a 2021 check date (1/1/2021 or later)

To help resolve your concern, let us consider if an actual check (with a date for December 2020) was given to the employees prior to incorrectly recording it in QuickBooks. If there is, then we can assume that the four checks were recorded for tracking purposes only or as a paper check. We can delete and recreate the paycheck. Here's how you can delete a paycheck in QuickBooks Online:

1. Go to the Payroll or Worker menu.

2. Choose the Employees tab.

3. Click An Employee, and go to the Paycheck list tab.

4. Locate the incorrecte Paycheck.

5. At the bottom menu, click Delete or Void.

6. Put a Check Mark in the I understand that this action cannot be undone box.

7. Click Delete Paycheck.

However, if the checks were created as direct deposit,  I understand you've already contacted them, but I still recommend contacting our Payroll Support team. A specialist can securely access your account and perform payroll corrections.

Lastly, you can read through these articles to help you stay compliant with the state and payroll tax regulations:

• Payroll Tax Compliance Links
• Common year-end questions and answers
• Common questions about payroll and salaried employees

Leave a comment below if you have further questions about this or if you need help with something else, I'm always glad to help.

Thank you for the response.

Unfortunately, the response is not applicable to this situation -- though I do understand the importance of constructive receipt and the valuable tool to delete checks.

Please review my original question paying close attention to the part where the quickbooks rep has already deleted the checks. 

I need to re-enter the checks as of the actual paid date which was in December. The program will not allow the entry due to the "tax penalties may apply" prompt.

I would like to note my friend processes payroll "after-the-fact" and provides paper checks to her employees. 

Any assistance that doesn't involve contacting a human would be greatly appreciated. 

Hi 2JZ!

Let me assist you in correcting your 2020 payroll data.

All we need to do here is to reenter the checks since our Payroll Support Team already deleted the incorrect ones. When you run payroll, you can change the pay period and pay date. You need to modify them and set the dates to December 2020 before saving. 

Please follow these steps:

1. From the Payroll menu, select Employees, then Run payroll.
2. Select a pay schedule, click Continue, then select the employees you want to pay.
3. Edit the pay period and pay date.
4. Enter the payroll details such as hours worked, then select Preview Payroll.
5. When you're ready, select Submit payroll.

Do you need to some reports? Here's how to run payroll reports in QuickBooks Online.

Comment again if you have more questions. Have a great day!

Hello AlexV!

Thank you for joining the thread!

I attempted to process payroll using the method you described. Unfortunately, I received the same prompt:

"You've picked a pay date that may cause you to make a late tax payment an incur a penalty. Try choosing a date closer to today's date."

There is an option to select continue but it brings me back to the run payroll screen resulting in an endless loop.

Is there an alternative method to enter payroll even if it results in incurring late tax payment penalties? 

Thanks again for joining! I'd really like to get this resolved with a "paper trail" for other people to follow when this happens to them rather than relying on the call center staff to make corrections.