Certified payroll in QuickBooks: what Desktop and Online can and cannot do

QuickBooks Desktop with an Enhanced Payroll subscription includes a Certified Payroll Report that fills a WH-347-style Excel form from a payroll run, for jobs you set up with prevailing wage items. Getting it right depends on how you set up payroll items, job costing, and the worker's classification in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Online has no certified payroll report. Intuit points users to third-party apps in its marketplace, which pull payroll data through the QuickBooks API and produce the form for a monthly fee.

Several long-standing add-ons serve Desktop users, importing the QuickBooks payroll file and producing federal and state reports.

Desktop Enhanced Payroll users who file every week, have their payroll items set up for prevailing wage, and are comfortable in Excel when the report needs adjusting.

Online users who want a marketplace app that connects automatically, and who file often enough for its monthly fee to be worth it.

Desktop's report is only as right as the payroll item setup behind it. Overtime on the wrong base, fringe treated as a wage item, and classification changes mid-week are all common setup errors that flow straight onto the form.

Online has nothing built in, and the add-ons typically cost $30 to $80 a month whether or not you have a public job that month.

Intuit has been moving customers from Desktop to Online for years. Desktop Payroll's future is limited, and the report with it.

CertifiedHours does not connect to QuickBooks and does not need to. Export the week's hours or payroll summary as a CSV, import it, and the crew and hours are matched by name; or type the hours, about a minute per worker. The math is done outside QuickBooks, against the wage determination, so the payroll item setup does not have to be perfect.

Nothing changes in how you run payroll. QuickBooks keeps paying people and filing taxes; CertifiedHours produces the WH-347 from the same numbers.