Arkansas Form AR3MAR Annual Reconciliation in QuickBooks
QuickBooks prefills Arkansas Employer's Annual Reconciliation (AR3MAR) withholding data, but users report confusion over account ID formatting and unfilled fields.
QuickBooks Desktop’s payroll module supports the Arkansas Employer’s Annual Reconciliation of Income Tax Withheld — Form AR3MAR — but users navigating year-end filing frequently run into questions about how the form auto-populates, why certain fields remain blank, and what the correct account ID format should be.
What the Form Covers
Form AR3MAR is the annual reconciliation that Arkansas employers file to report state income tax withheld over the course of the tax year. QuickBooks is designed to prefill the form using the payroll data already entered throughout the year — monthly withholding amounts, payments made, and year-end totals. In most cases, if company, payroll, and employee records are complete and up to date, the form requires little to no manual entry.
The AR3MAR is filed alongside the ARW-3 transmittal form and copies of all W-2 and 1099 statements. The filing deadline is January 31 of the year following the tax year being reported. Employers reporting 250 or more employees and payees are required to file their W-2s and 1099s electronically. Payments, where applicable, are sent to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration in Little Rock.
Where Users Get Stuck
The most common friction points reported by users center on fields that QuickBooks does not automatically populate and on the account ID format. QuickBooks pulls the company name, address, and account number from the existing company profile, but if the state account number was never entered or is formatted incorrectly, the form cannot complete that field properly.
The Arkansas withholding account number must follow a specific 12-character pattern: eight numeric digits, a hyphen, and the letters “WHW.” If no state account number is found in the QuickBooks company file, the program defaults to using the federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) as the account ID — which is not a valid substitute for Arkansas filing purposes. Users who see their EIN populated in the Account ID field should treat that as a signal that the correct state account number still needs to be entered in company settings.
How QuickBooks Populates the Columns
The form divides withholding data into two columns. Column A reflects the actual amount of Arkansas state tax withheld each month, pulled from paycheck data. Column B reflects the net amount of withholding tax actually paid — meaning total payments minus any refunds received for specific periods.
At the bottom of the form, QuickBooks calculates two year-end totals: total tax withheld for the entire year (Column A) and total tax paid for the entire year (Column B). The total withheld should match the combined Arkansas state tax withholding reported on all W-2s for the year. If those numbers do not align, the discrepancy typically points to a data-entry issue earlier in the year — a paycheck with incorrect withholding, a manual adjustment, or a W-2 that needs correction.
If total tax withheld exceeds total tax paid, the difference appears as tax due. Users should review monthly entries to confirm that all payments were recorded correctly before filing.
Reviewing and Saving the Form
QuickBooks includes a Help button within the form window itself. For users trying to trace where a specific number originated, that button opens guidance on how the program calculated each field. It also covers general navigation of the form window and troubleshooting steps for common issues.
Users who need to work with their payroll data outside of QuickBooks can export a summary to Microsoft Excel for additional analysis or record-keeping. Saving a copy of the completed form as a PDF is also supported, which is useful for archiving or sharing with an accountant.
What to Check Before Filing
Before submitting the AR3MAR, users should verify that the Arkansas state account number is entered in the correct 12-character format, confirm that the total withholding on the form matches the W-2 totals, and review any fields QuickBooks left blank. The form is only as accurate as the underlying payroll data, so gaps in paycheck records or misclassified payments will carry through to the reconciliation.
For broader help with QuickBooks payroll forms and troubleshooting, including issues with state filings and data accuracy, additional resources are available.