Delete an employee in QuickBooks desktop and online

As a business owner, you may need to alter your employee records once in a while in case an employee quits or is asked to leave. In such circumstances, you would also need to make changes to your company records in QuickBooks to ensure that it reflects correct data. However, before you learn to delete an employee in QuickBooks desktop and online, you must know that an employee can only be deleted if no paycheck has been generated for them yet. If it has even one, you may have to deactivate them.

Deleting an employee in QuickBooks is quite an easy process, but as mentioned before, you have to ensure that the employee you wish to delete doesn’t have any active paychecks. There are two ways to erase an employee record – delete an employee or deactivate an employee.

Let us look at how each of these steps can be performed.

How to delete an employee in QuickBooks?

To delete an employee in QuickBooks, you have to:

1. Open QuickBooks and go to “Workers”
2. Choose “Employees”
3. Now, select the employee you wish to delete
4. Next, click “Edit Employee”
5. Then, select “Delete”
6. Lastly, click “Yes” to confirm

How to deactivate an employee in QuickBooks?

To inactive an employee in QuickBooks, you have to:

1. Open QuickBooks and select “Workers”
2. Choose “Employees”
3. Now, click on the employee details you wish to deactivate
4. Next, select “Edit” and from the dropdown menu, click “Terminated”
5. Finally, choose “Done”

The above-mentioned processes are extremely convenient and time-saving, however, don’t forget to decide whether to erase or deactivate an employee based on their details.

How can you delete an employee in QuickBooks Payroll?

Deleting an employee in QuickBooks payroll is slightly different than the processes mentioned above and may require a few additional steps depending on whether you wish to erase an employee in QuickBooks Online payroll, QuickBooks Desktop payroll, or Intuit Online payroll.

Let us take a look at each of these procedures one by one.

Deleting an employee in QuickBooks Online Payroll

1. Login to your QuickBooks online account and go to the menu option and select “Payroll”
2. Now, click on “Employees” and select the employee you wish to delete
3. If you can’t find the one you are looking for, you can search for them in the employee’s list
4. Once you find the employee you are looking for, from the dropdown, click “Edit”
5. Next, select the option that says “Delete employee”
6. Click any confirmation popup you may get for the changes to take effect

Deleting an employee in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll

1. Open the QuickBooks Desktop and click “Employees”
2. Go to the “Employee Center” from the dropdown
3. Select the employee from the list of employees
4. Right-click the correct employee
5. If you don’t see the employee’s name you are looking for, select “All employees” from active employees and find the one you want
6. Now, click “Delete Employee” and click “OK/Yes” to confirm

Deleting an employee in Intuit Online Payroll

1. Find and click on the Employees tab
2. Select the name of the employee you wish to delete
3. If the employee isn’t active, choose “All Employees” from the dropdown and find the one you want
4. Now, click “Delete this employee”
5. Lastly, select “Delete” to confirm

At this point, we must remind you again that if there is a payment history or paycheck generated under the employee’s name, don’t delete it since doing so can cause you to lose important company tax information. You have to ensure that you make the employee inactive instead of erasing them.

Source: https://dancingnumbers.bcz.com/how-to-delete-an-employee-in-quickbooks-desktop-and-online/