Georgia New Hire Report in QuickBooks: What Employers Need to Know

QuickBooks Desktop includes a built-in New Hire Report formatted for Georgia state compliance, but employers running the report for the first time are finding that not every field populates correctly — and some require manual attention before the form is ready to submit.

The Georgia New Hire Reporting Program requires employers to report newly hired, rehired, and certain temporary employees within 10 calendar days of the employee’s first day of work. QuickBooks assembles the report using employee setup data already on file, but users have flagged confusion over which fields carry over automatically, which ones need a manual entry, and where to find the report in the first place.

Where to Find the Report

To locate the New Hire Report in QuickBooks Desktop, navigate to the Employees menu, then select Employee Center. From there, choose the option for state-specific new hire reporting. The Georgia form appears as part of QuickBooks’ state compliance forms suite. Users who have trouble locating it can use the in-product Help button on the form window itself, which opens guidance specific to the form currently on screen.

Who Must Be Reported

Georgia employers must report any employee who resides or works in the state and to whom the employer anticipates paying earnings. This includes workers who are terminated after a single day — they still need to be reported if the employer has not yet fulfilled the new hire reporting requirement before termination.

Rehires and recalled employees also fall under the mandate. That includes employees returning from a leave without pay, as well as workers who remain on the payroll during a break in service or gap in pay and then resume working. Seasonal workers, substitute teachers, and similar staff are captured under this rule.

For temporary agencies, the responsibility falls on the agency rather than the client. An employee assigned to a new client does not need to be re-reported each time, but a break in service or wages does trigger a new rehire report.

Fields That May Need Manual Entry

QuickBooks imports several data points from employee records, but not all of them transfer cleanly — and some are required by the state even when QuickBooks leaves them blank.

Employee Date of Birth

This is a required field on the Georgia form. QuickBooks will pull the date of birth from the employee setup record, but only if it was entered there originally. If the field is blank in the employee profile, it will be blank on the report, and the employer must fill it in manually.

Employee Gender

QuickBooks imports gender from the employee setup record when available. However, this field is optional for Georgia state reporting purposes — employers can leave it populated as imported, or delete the information before submitting if they prefer not to share it with the state. The key point is that it is not required for a successful submission.

Employee Date of Hire

The hire date imports from the employee setup record. If the imported date does not reflect the actual hire date, the employer can edit it directly on the form before generating or submitting the report.

First Day of Work

Federal law has required this field since the start of 2012. The “first day of work” is defined as the date the employee first performs paid work. Because most employers treat the hire date and the first day of work as the same, QuickBooks automatically copies the value from the Date of Hire field into the First Day of Work field. Employers should verify that the two dates align — if they differ, the First Day of Work field can be corrected manually.

Medical Benefits Availability

This is a required field. Employers must enter “Yes” if medical benefits are available to the employee and “No” if they are not. QuickBooks does not automate this entry.

Pay Frequency

The form asks whether the employee is paid hourly, monthly, or yearly. Enter “Hourly” for employees paid by the hour, “Monthly” for salaried employees paid across 12 pay periods, or “Yearly” if the salary is distributed as a single payment. This is another field that may require a manual selection depending on how the employee is set up.

Bottom Line

The Georgia New Hire Report in QuickBooks is functional, but it is not a fully hands-off process. Employers relying on it should review each field against their employee records before submitting — particularly date of birth, first day of work, medical benefits availability, and pay frequency. The gender field, while imported by default, remains optional and can be removed without affecting compliance.

For broader payroll and reporting guidance, QuickBooks users can find additional troubleshooting resources covering common form-generation and compliance issues across state requirements.