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HomerFair
September 22, 2023
Question

Merge two active payroll accounts

  • September 22, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 0 views

     How do I merge two employee accounts (same employee/SS# with 'elected' after their last name for the account that doesn't pay UC taxes) with active payroll for this year? QB will no longer allow me to have two separate accounts, which I set up because the UC was taxed on one but not the other(elected officials are not UC taxed). I just tried to follow QB directions for merging "change the first and last name fields to exactly match the employee you wish to keep," but I received the WARNING "Employees with payroll transactions cannot be merged. Please use another name."

     Is my only recourse to make the one account inactive and RECREATE all the paychecks on the other account? That is so tedious at this point in the year!! HELP!

3 replies

BigRedConsulting
BigRedConsulting
September 22, 2023

You can't merge two employees that both have payroll transactions.  That's a longstanding restriction that actually has a reason, in that the paychecks were calculated independently and merging the two employees together would cause a bit of mayhem with the say QB calculates taxes going forward.

 

This is just one more reason that the new restrictions are objectionable and half-baked.  Whoever came up with this and didn't think through it like a professional software engineer should be fired or removed from working on payroll, as they have demonstrated that they don't have the mental capacity to predict the issues they've created. These issues range from payroll compliance to technical issues to understanding that they have users with many, many years of payroll data in their files, who had no reason under the sun (and still don't) to provide all of the information QB is now requiring and to suddenly try to change their payroll to comply - when there's literally no reason to do so.

    H
    HomerFairAuthor
    September 23, 2023

         I agree with you! The reason I had them under two different 'names' with the same SS# was because I had to handle the UC Taxes differently because they have a 'working wage' as well as an 'elected wage'. Yes, as you mentioned, I do have YEARS of payroll history going back to doing it this way since 2005. Those elected employees that also had working wage always got two W2's, but that was never a problem.

         I spoke with Intuit QB Payroll Chat and he was able to help me make them active again. Now I know how to do that. But the only way I can think to fix this moving forward is to change the Payroll Tax under 'working wage' Employee, then recreate each payroll check for this year, next delete them under the duplicate 'elected' Employee, and finally make that one INACTIVE. Then going forward, I have to remember to manually change the Payroll Tax every time I do their elected salaries. If I forget, then my UC Tax will be incorrect.

         Now I'm just HOPING that this will work. Your thoughts?

      C
      CCT2
      November 21, 2023

      Can you tell me the steps quickbooks told you to take to merge the 2 employees?  I have one with a middle initial and one without and I can't figure out how to combine them into the same employee.

        A
        AllClean
        January 23, 2024

        Can you please tell us how they helped you resolve your issue, as I have the same issue and now can't run W2s for my duplicated payroll accounts. Any help is greatly appreciated.

        M
        Michelle624
        January 23, 2024

        QuickBooks did NOT help me. I worked with our accountant to merge the two employee totals within the w2 review portion. Then I printed one w2 with all the totals and one w2 with zeroes. Hopefully that will work.

          A
          AllClean
          January 23, 2024

          Thank you!

          S
          suzi102
          April 21, 2025

          SAME problem here - why can't QB merge the employee's payrolls?  I would have to re-enter 52 checks for each year.  The time it takes would be ridiculous.  There must be some way for QB to merge this employee entered twice.

           

          BigRedConsulting
          BigRedConsulting
          April 21, 2025

          @suzi102 

          You cannot merge two employees if both employees have been paid with payroll transactions. If one employee was not paid, then you can merge that employee away into another employee.

           

          Why do you want to merge the employees? It sounds like you've been using one for over a year (you mention 52 payrolls). If so, just keep using the employee you've been using of late and make the other one inactive.

          S
          suzi102
          April 21, 2025

          I did make the other one inactive and terminated, but QB is reporting zero for the new data on our State Tax returns. They pick it all up for the 941's and W-2's  but leave all his payroll off the State UI return  (Texas).

          Why?

          Afraid the more I mess with this the worse it's going to get.  I have to manually enter his data into the Texas Unemployment Tax Returns.

           

          Thoughts?

           

           

           

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