what would be the reason that an administrator can't edit a employees name (read only)

Thank you for reaching the Community, trey12.

I'd like to help and share what I know about user roles and access in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Primary admin and company admins are the only users who gets all the access rights. It's possible that your client's user permission wasn't set up correctly to be able to edit, or manage your employee records.

In just a few steps you can check and manage user role or access permission.

Here's how:

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online account as a user profile that has permission to manage users.
2. Go to the Gear ⚙ icon.
3. Choose Manage users.
4. Review your client's user profile. Then you can select Edit in the Action column if you need to change it.
5. Once done, click on Save.

I'd like to add this article to learn more about the users roles and access: User roles and access rights in QuickBooks Online.

Once you've applied those changes on your employees, you can check out this link to start processing their payroll: Process or run payroll.

You can click the Reply button below if you still have other questions or clarifications about user role and access. I'll keep an eye for your response. Have nice weekend!