Colorado Long Term Care Employer Report: Hours and IDs from QuickBooks

Colorado long term care employers have an annual state filing that runs on QuickBooks payroll data. The Long Term Care Employer report is due January 31 each year. It backs a refundable $1,200 state credit that eligible direct care workers claim on their personal tax returns, and the hours you report are what make the claim possible. The state asks for three data points per worker: name, SSN or ITIN, and total hours worked. Two QuickBooks payroll reports cover all of it.

Who must file, and who gets counted

You count as a long term care employer if you provide certain services in Colorado. The list covers:

• Home and community-based services
• Care provided at a nursing facility
• Care provided by a certified home care agency

Report hours for direct care workers who provide hands-on care and services, including personal care, and who assist participants receiving long term care in the state. The two lists differ, and both have to line up: your organization must deliver covered services, and the worker must deliver hands-on care. One exclusion is easy to miss. Certified Nurses Aides are not part of this program, and their hours stay out of the filing.

The obligation sits with you as the employer. A worker cannot report these hours personally, which makes your January 31 deadline their deadline too.

The hours: Payroll Summary by employee

Total hours come from the Payroll Summary by employee report. In QuickBooks, go to Reports and open the Standard reports section, then search for that report by name. Make sure the by-employee version is the one you open. Set the date range, enter the dates for the year you are reporting, and apply. If you file in January for the year just ended, type the prior year’s dates rather than accepting the default range.

The report then lists hours for each person on the payroll. Each row gives one employee’s totals for the period you set, which is exactly the figure the template wants. That breadth is the main trap. The report shows every employee, not only qualifying care workers. We suggest separating eligible staff from the rest before anything goes into the state template.

Social Security numbers and ITINs

Tax numbers live in the Employee details report. From the reports menu, search for Employee details and open it. In the tax section, select View next to the SSN field. QuickBooks asks you to authenticate before it shows each number, and the check repeats for every employee. On a large roster that step adds real time, so plan for it.

Workers without a Social Security number may hold an ITIN instead, and the state template accepts either. If a number will not display in the report, the employee’s federal W-4 or I-9 carries the same information. Those forms are a workable fallback when the deadline is close.

The spreadsheet and the upload

The Colorado Department of Revenue supplies a spreadsheet template for this filing. Download it from the department’s site; the template link is expected to go live in January 2026. Enter each qualifying worker’s name, SSN or ITIN, and total hours worked. Then upload the finished spreadsheet through the state’s Revenue Online service by January 31.

Access to that system depends on how you already file. Employers who submit year-end withholding returns, meaning W-2s, with the department get access automatically. Employers who do not must request access specifically for this report, and that request goes through the department rather than through QuickBooks. If that second group describes your business, make the request well before the deadline.

The short version

The filing leans entirely on data QuickBooks already holds. Hours sit in the payroll summary, tax numbers sit one authenticated view away, and the state template asks for little else. Pull both reports before the template opens, keep Certified Nurses Aides out, and the January upload becomes routine.