AL OT Withholding exemption

When is this update going to happen?????

Again, this is USELESS and RIDICULOUS reply from QuickBooks!  Calling their Customer Services does absolutely nothing but waste our time.  Of the 6 people that I have now spoken with at QuickBooks over the last 2 days, not a single one of them knew ANYTHING about the Alabama overtime change/update.  It was finally a Manager that told me the update had not even been pushed out and would hopefully be today.  I truly don't understand why these responses keep telling us to call Customer Service, when it is known that the update is NOT working.  Why can't you simply tell these overworked and stressed out payroll customers the truth - that there is NOTHING they can do right now but wait on QuickBooks to send out the update???  

Sorry, website was having issues not letting me finish my post. This is what we found out: 

Well we finally figured out how to get the Alabama OT Exemption payroll item to work for us. Most of our clients use the 1.5 Overtime for all hours worked over 40 in a week. This is what we found that finally worked:

1. You must have the most recent payroll tax table installed and all software updates installed and up to date. This should be an easy task but is anything but. I have wasted hours trying to get software updates installed and not show pending. Just closing out of the software will not always get the newest pending updates to install. This is what I learned must be done to force the software to update. 

1(a). Right click on desktop shortcut and "Run as Administrator". Somehow this gets most of the updates installed but does not guarantee that it will. If this does not work, close out of all programs and restart your computer. Then right click shortcut on desktop to "Run as Administrator" again and see if it installs. You may have to Run as Administrator then check for updates several times before all the updates will install but they eventually will. 

2. Even though our OT payroll item was set up correctly using the 1.5 time regular hourly rate, somehow the payroll item was missing a property that was not communicating with the new "AL - OT Withholding Exemption" payroll item. We are guessing that somewhere along all these years, that the item got corrupt or is missing a link/property that helps the new Exempt wages payroll item from treating it as a true Overtime Wage. 

3. We had to create an all new OT Hourly Rate payroll item at 1.5 hourly rate for the new Exempt wages payroll item to recognize it as wages exempt from Alabama withholding. 

4. Any new wage payroll item set up will automatically be added to the AL OT Withholding Exemption. If you do not want a new payroll item to be subject to the exemption, edit the exemption payroll item to uncheck any Wages item that you do not want to apply to the exemption. 

5. All paychecks created since Jan 1st, 2024 that you had OT wages added, you will need to unlock the paychecks and edit the OT payroll item to include the new OT Hourly Rate payroll item you just created. If you do not use the new payroll item then the AL OT Exemption totals, will not include those wages from prior paychecks that it did not previously recognize as true OT Hourly Rate wages. 

6. If everything is working correctly, the state withholding amount will actually go down after you add the new OT Exempt wages. This I read is because QuickBooks state withholding takes in to account the federal withholding amount as a deduction when it calculates the state taxable wages.

7. Create a payroll item detail report that includes only the AL OT Withholding Exemption item. To do this, click on Reports > Employees & Payroll > Payroll Item Detail. Click button to Customize then click on the Filters Tab and select Payroll Item under the Search Filters listing, then click on the drop down list and select AL - OT Withholding Exemption. Click on Display Tab and Total by Employee and Sort by Source Name. This report will help you keep track of the dollar amount and number of employees that your will report on a monthly or quarterly basis. Just edit your date to include those wages you are currently reporting. I had more to say but obviously the website will not allow me to type anything more than this and since I am hoping this will help someone its the best I can do for now. Best of luck everyone.