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March 12, 2026
Question

Year End Retirement Match for Terminated Employees

  • March 12, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 24 views

Our 401k plan requires us to include terminated employees when we do our annual 401k employer match contribution.  However, this becomes an issue with recording the match in QBO because they will have zero earnings for the period of record.  QBO won't let me create a paycheck unless they have some type of earning.  I have spent hours on the phone with support to figure out a solution to do a net zero check for those terminated employees including the match that doesn't feel like a hack that throws off our books.  Support has suggested a couple of different approaches, but all feel wrong:

  1. add 0.01 hours to the employee and revise their pay rate to get them  $0.01 of earnings and then short pay them on the match by $0.01 (absolutely will not do this for multiple reasons)
  2. add another earning type and deduction type that will offset each other (this seems like the best approach, but still feels like a hack the requires journal entries to then clear up the offsetting earning and deductions)
  3. submit a payroll correction case that can take up to 45 days to resolve (hate to have to do this for every terminated employee, every year, and wait for the payroll correction team to just close my cases without ever fixing the issue)

Is there a better way or am I stuck with option 2 or 3? 

 

I have had terrible experiences with the payroll correction team in the past and you have to go thru the normal support team to have any interaction with them.  So you are relying on them to understand and relay your need correctly to the correction team is a long and frustrating process.

1 reply

cody_a
Community Manager
March 13, 2026

We want to make sure your retirement plan requirements are met accurately and efficiently, @mricheson-riches.

 

I’ve shared the details of your situation with our Next Level Help team so they can find the best path forward for you. They’ll be reviewing your Community comments and previous support history to get the full picture of what you've already tried. You can expect one of our experts to reach out to you within 1-2 business days with the next steps.