Back to Payroll Basics - Replacing QuickBooks Payroll Checks

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Bright and early Monday morning, one of your employees comes to you and says that his "wife washed last Friday's paycheck over the weekend" before he got the opportunity to deposit it.  How do you handle replacing his payroll check?

You should rarely need to void a paycheck. Remember that voiding a paycheck is not like voiding other kinds of checks; paychecks have associated tax and other liability calculations and payments that need to be taken into consideration.

When an employee loses a paycheck or if their paycheck needs to be revised, the employee will usually bring it to your attention immediately. For this reason, QuickBooks offers the ability to edit, revise and/or re-print the original transaction.

So as a general rule, “NEVER EVER, EVER NEVER, VOID A PAYCHECK!”

To replace a paycheck follow these 7 steps:

  1. DO NOT VOID the Original Paycheck.
  2. From the Check Register, Double-click on the Paycheck to enter the Edit window.  Reset the To Be Printed flag; on the memo-line on the face of the check, note “replaces check (old #)”; save the transaction.
  3. Reprint the Paycheck with a new check number but the original check date.
  4. Open the Write (regular) Check window.
  5. Enter the Employee’s Name in the Pay To field. On the memo-line on the face of the check, note “replaced by check (new #)”, use the old (lost) check date.
  6. On the Stub under Expenses enter your Payroll-expenses Account, with a zero amount.
  7. Uncheck the “To Be Printed flag” and enter the old check number in the check number field; select Edit: Void Check and Save the voided check.

So let's look at this process in a little greater detail.

1) DO NOT VOID the Original Paycheck.

2) From the Check Register, Double-click on the Paycheck to enter the Edit window.  Reset the To Be Printed flag; on the memo-line on the face of the check, note “replaces check (old #)”; and Save the transaction.

3) Reprint the Paycheck with a new check number but the original check date. (At this moment the “old check” no longer exists within QuickBooks, only the new #.)

4) Open the Write (regular) Check window.

5) Enter the Employee’s Name in the Pay To field. On the memo-line on the face of the check, note “replaced by check (new #)”, use the old (lost) check date.

6) On the Stub under Expenses enter your Payroll-expenses Account, with a zero amount.

7) Uncheck the “To Be Printed flag” and enter the old check number in the check number field; select Edit: Void Check and Save the voided check.

Now the old check # exists as a voided check and the replacement paycheck exists as a new check #, and all of your tax liabilities and records remain intact.

Editor's Note: Yes, this is an 'Oldie' but 'Goodie'. If this article seems familiar it is because it is essentially a re-print of an earlier article I wrote a couple of years ago; but as I said, it is good to recover key topics from the past, from time to time, so that new readers can experience the same information that our loyal readers have previously been exposed to.