This QuickBooks tip explains where you can easily access employee payroll forms; including the Federal I-9, W-4, and W-9′s.
Having used QuickBooks for many years, I can remember when needing an I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification), a W-4 (Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificate), or a W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification) meant a trip to the appropriate website to obtain the most current form – and depending on how busy I was at the moment, that could be a royal pain!
The I-9, Federal W-4, and W-9 are now available to anyone with a current payroll subscription using QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2009-2012 or Enterprise 9.0-12.0 from the Employees menu -> Employee Forms option; you’ll also find a Direct Deposit and Pay Card Authorization form.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
NOTE: If you don’t see the Employee Forms menu option; choose the Get Payroll Updates option and get the latest payroll update. Restart QuickBooks after the update has been installed.
The forms open in a “fillable”. pdf format, so employees can type in their I-9, W-4, Direct Deposit or Pay Card Authorization information and it will be legible!
You can easily send W-9′s to your vendors as an email attachment {once the .pdf of the W-9 is open and visible, from the File menu -> choose Attach to email}.
You will still need to obtain the current version of the State W-4 from their website and have that on hand.
These are certainly handy forms to have quick access to and will save you from having to worry about whether or not you have a copy of the form, the most current version of the form, or from having to go searching on the internet to download the most current version that is available.
Critical note: You MUST have a .pdf creator/reader installed on your computer in order to open/use these forms. If you currently don’t have a pdf creator/reader, check out Foxit Reader – it’s free!
We hope you’ve found today’s QuickBooks tip to be helpful; if so please take a moment to leave a comment or share this tip with others via your favorite social networking site using the buttons below.
Do you have to reverify an employee’s Form I-9 if his driver’s license expires? What about if an employee’s work authorization expires? The answer is no for one, but yes for the other. Find out which situations require reverification. From HR Matters E-Tips.
Question: When do we need to reverify the Form I-9? Do we have to reverify if an employee’s driver’s license or passport expires? What about when we rehire former employees? Are there other times that we have to reverify an employee’s Form I-9?
Answer: The Form I-9, otherwise known as the Employment Eligibility Verification Form, must be completed and kept on file for each new employee and also must be reverified in certain limited circumstances. You do not need to reverify the Form I-9 when an employee’s driver’s license expires. According to the “Handbook for Employers: Instructions for Completing Form I-9,” publication M-274, provided by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), employers do no to reverify the Form I-9 when an employee’s identity document expires (List B documents), such as a driver’s license. In addition, the handbook states that you never have to reverify a U.S. citizen’s status, except when they terminate and are rehired (see below). So if a current employee’s passport expires, you do not have to reverify that employee’s Form I-9 either. (You can find a copy of the M-274 online at http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/m-274.pdf)
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act regulations found in 8 C.F.R. §§274a.2(b)(1)(vii) and 274a.2(c) that explain the Form I-9 requirements, you must reverify work eligibility in two circumstances: (1) if an individual’s employment authority expires; or (2) if an individual who was previously employed by the organization is rehired. Reverification may be handled on the Form I-9 originally completed for the employee.
If an employee’s work authorization expires, you must reverify in Section 3 of the Form I-9 that the employee is still authorized to work in the United States. Reverification must be completed no later than the date on which the employment authorization expires.
The employee must present proof of employment eligibility in the form of any of the documents allowed by the Form I-9 to show continuing eligibility or a new grant of authorization to work. The employee does not have to present a new version of the same document presented initially. Further, you cannot accept receipts showing that the employee has applied for an extension of an expired employment authorization document. When received, you should note the new document’s identification number and expiration date on the Form I-9.
(Note that reverification is not required simply because an employee’s resident alien card (also known as the Form I-551, Permanent Resident Card, or “Green Card”) expires. These cards are typically issued with a 10-year expiration date, no expiration date, or a 2-year expiration date. In these cases, the employee’s worker eligibility status has not expired, only the card has. However, a new employee may not use an expired resident alien card initially to show employment eligibility and authorization. See the “Handbook for Employers: Instructions for Completing Form I-9,” publication M-274.)
When you rehire a former employee, you may update the ex-employee’s original Form I-9 if the ex-employee is rehired within three years of the original hire date and the form indicates that the individual is still eligible for employment. You then simply can note the date of rehire on the form. If the previously completed Form I-9 shows that the individual’s employment authorization has expired, you must reverify the individual’s employment eligibility according to the Form I-9 requirements and record the document’s identification number and expiration date on the Form I-9.
An individual is considered to be continuing in employment rather than a rehire (and therefore not subject to the reverification requirements) if he reasonably expected to resume employment and: (1) was on a paid or unpaid temporary leave of absence approved by the employer; (2) was promoted or demoted; (3) was temporarily laid off due to lack of work; (4) was on strike or in a labor dispute; (5) was reinstated by a court or settlement after a wrongful termination; (6) was transferred from one distinct unit of the employer to another; (7) continues employment with a related successor, or reorganized employer; or (8) is engaged in seasonal employment.
——————————
From HR Matters E-Tips, a free service of Personnel Policy Service, Inc., 159 St. Matthews Ave., Suite 5, Louisville, KY 40204
Employers are required to complete an I-9 form at the time of hire for all employees that have been hired on or after November 6, 1986. The employer must complete Section 1 prior to the end of the first day of employment. For example, if an employee starts working on a Monday, Section 1 of the form must be completed by the close of business on Monday.
The employer must review the original documents and complete Section 2 within 3 business days of the first day of work. Additionally, if the employer has enrolled in E-Verify, the E-Verify inquiry must be initiated before the end of the third day of work.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released an updated 69 page version of The Handbook for Employers (also known as the M-274), which was revised on 01/05/2011, download the Handbook for Employers from the US. Citizenship & Immigration Services website.
Other Resources:
Download the current I-9 form here
E-Verify Information for Federal Contractors
E-Verify User Manual for Federal Contractors
E-Verify Supplemental Guide for Federal Contractors
Upgrading to QuickBooks Premier Account 2011 caused some errors with my existing forms and form templates.
Earlier this week I had to bite the bullet and upgrade my own QuickBooks file, moving it from the 2008 Premier Accountant version to the 2011 Premier Accountant Edition; as part of our own move from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Yes, folks just like many of you we have been moving software and multitudes of data from XP machines to Windows 7 and updating our QuickBooks company data file. Not a fun task, but a necessary one.
Upgrading our QuickBooks file was an easy task, we have a rather large QuickBooks file and the time it took to do the actual update seemed to be much faster than with previous upgrades. Our file seemed to be in good shape after the update, numbers on my reports matched, nothing missing – so I’m thinking yeah, this was easy!
All seemed to be good — until I had to go look at a Customer Invoice and then the fun and errors began. We kept getting these odd, and very unhelpful, “Template Error” messages, but could view the invoice without a problem on our screens.
Now, I had seen posts on other forums and groups that I belong to, where people were having trouble importing a customized template from an older version of QuickBooks to the 2011 version, but this wasn’t what I was trying to do.
I just figured that for whatever reason our invoice templates didn’t upgrade correctly. A couple of rebuilds later, still no luck. Next I created a portable company file and then opened that portable file – still no luck. Next, I decided to start from scratch, chose one of the QuickBooks standard templates, made a copy of it, and set about to customize it – now bear in mind, I did little to customize it, mainly removed the print ability of some columns and changed some field headers. Still the same errors. By now I’m pretty darn frustrated, but decided to try one more thing — and that was to print the darn thing.
Trying to print the invoice, produced a much more helpful error message, it told me that I didn’t have an Arial W1 font installed on my computer. So now I turn to my trusty sidekick, Google, and do a search for an Arial W1 font. Come to find out, an Arial W1 font is a special font that you have to BUY! Uh, thanks — but NO THANKS!
So off I go to my Template, open it in the Layout Designer and begin to search for a section of my form that uses this font. Come to find out, in the Layout Designer, the form name (Invoice, Estimate, Purchase Order, Sales Order, etc.) if the field that used the Arial W1 font. A simple font change and a save solved the problem – but only after a couple of hours of frustration.
So, if you’ve recently upgrade to QuickBooks 2011 and are experiencing “Template Errors” or “Missing Arial W1 font” messages, it’s a quick fix.
- From the Edit menu, choose Templates
- Find the template(s) that you use all the time in your business. Select it, double-click to Edit.
- Click the Layout Designer button
- Find the form title (Invoice, Estimate, Purchase Order, etc.). Right click and choose Properties.
- Click the Font button, and change the font to something else, a standard Arial will do.
- Click the OK button 4 times.
- Try printing your form again.
I hope this article will save you from some of the frustration that I experienced or provide you with what is really a pretty simple fix, once you know what you need to fix!
As a business owner there can be several different situations that you encounter where you might need to include a long legal disclaimer or explanation when you sell a specific item, offer special discounts, provide warranty disclaimers and information or explain your payment requirements when bidding on a job or even invoicing a customer.
There are four different methods for addressing this issue; the one that you choose will depend on what makes the most sense for your business:
- Items
- Template
- Letters Function
- Outside of QuickBooks
- Using Items to add long disclaimers – If the additional information needs to be included when a specific product is sold, that information can be included in the description OR you can create a new item with a zero sales cost for the purpose of adding the information to a Purchase Order, an Estimate, or an Invoice. The advantage of creating a separate item is that you can place the disclaimer item where you would like it on the form; right after the item it relates to, or at the bottom of an Estimate form. Later, you can delete it for billing purposes – as long as both you and your customer have a copy of the Estimate that contains the detailed information.
- Modifying the Form Template to include long disclaimers – If the disclaimer is long and you have the same disclaimer for every Estimate you create, for example your billing terms, and would like to make it a standard part of your form, using the Long Text Disclaimer section on the template itself may be the best solution. Choose Lists -> Templates -> select form -> Edit. The text can be entered and then the font size and placement can be adjusted using the Layout Designer.
- Using the QuickBooks Letters function – If the disclaimer is exceedingly long, after you create the form create an accompanying Letter in QuickBooks. Access the Letters function from the Customer Center by clicking on the Word option. Use this method with option with option 1 or 2 above to indicate that additional information is included on a separate page.
- Outside of QuickBooks – Depending on what needs to be included, it might make more sense to print the disclaimer on the back of the form. It would also be possible to use this method in conjunction with option 1 or 2 to state something along the lines of “see additional disclaimer information on the back of this form” to include a reference to the information without having to actually include it on the form.
