Intuit has begun pushing out Maintenance Release 5 for their 2020 QuickBooks Desktop Product line. In addition to 2020 payroll compliance this release contains several other fixes and updates to products features that were new or enhanced this year.
The changes, improvements and fixes elaborated below were included in this release for QuickBooks Pro 2020, QuickBooks Premier 2020, QuickBooks Accountant 2020 and QuickBooks Enterprise v20.0. Be aware that each new update also includes all the changes from earlier updates. If you have automatic updates turned on, QuickBooks will download the updates for you and prompt you to install it. You can manually download the update from the Official Intuit QuickBooks Downloads and Updates Webpage (product/version specific).
Intuit's release notes address the following changes, improvements and fixes (as supplemented by Insightful Accountant):
US Federal W-4 2020
- QuickBooks Payroll now supports the new 2020 W-4 as well as continuing to support the 2019 and prior W-4.
While the changes to the new W-4 form will likely result in confusion, they're ultimately a good thing. It should be easier for employees to set and adjust withholding to achieve the desired results, such as zero tax due, or a specific refund amount due back, at the time of their return.
New-2020_IRS-Form_W-4_p1
Payroll Reports
- You can now generate reports for State Mandated Retirement deductions for Oregon, Illinois and California.
US Payroll Compliance
- Payroll has been updated to ensure continued compliance with United States payroll tax laws.
Simplify Install
- The install experience has been updated to be easier and more stable.
Preview PDF attachment with email
- QuickBooks now automatically shows a preview of the email attachments. (For some users this is a 'big deal', you no longer have to go find and open the PDF, you can view it immediately upon creation.)
Landed cost v2 (QBES with Advanced Inventory)
- Have the flexibility to calculate landed costs for transactions under closed accounting period as well.
- Added the option to use COGS account for Landed cost calculation in addition to Other Current Asset account type. (This is a 'very big deal' for many users who felt that they should be able to directly value landed costs into COGS rather than on the Balance Sheet as an Other Asset.)
- Added the option to choose the print bill functionality with or without Landed cost.
- You can filter Shipping and Handling bills using the bill status.
Payroll Liability Reminder
- You can now set up reminders/alerts for payroll liability due dates in third party applications like MS Outlook, Google Calendar, iCalendar and Windows Calendar. You can also export these events in .ics files which can be imported into any calendar application. (Another 'big deal' for many users who wanted QuickBooks Payroll reminders to interact with their preferred calendar system rather than simply provide a reminder within 'the product.')
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue which showed incorrect results in the income or bill tracker filtering transactions by 'Last Fiscal YTD'.
- Fixed an issue where PO number field entered on an invoice appears blank when transactions for a given customer are exported as a report.
- Fixed an issue where multiple email addresses in the main email field for a customer were not getting imported using IIF Import.
- Customers who receive combined email for multiple invoices with payment links can now see correct due date for the invoices.
Should You Update?
This is always a question! There is a lot more in this '2020' product release than in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 corresponding releases, and that means you have an even tougher decision to make when it comes to upgrading sooner vs. later.
Obviously if you are going to need to deal with the new W-4 forms then you are probably going to be required to update to this newest release in order to do so. But some of the fixes in this release are also intended to solve issues that have been troubling users with features like Landed Costs (for Enterprise Advanced Inventory users), Bill Tracker reporting, Payment links in emailed multiple invoices, and several others. In those cases you may also want to get your fixes on-board ASAP.
Otherwise, you may want to hold off for a short time to see if any adverse findings are reported, but beyond that you really will have little time to otherwise evaluate the safety of this release because sooner or later almost every business that does payroll is going to need the new W-4 employee form support for QuickBooks that is incorporated into this release.