North Carolina New Hire Reporting in QuickBooks: What Employers Need to File
QuickBooks desktop and online users preparing North Carolina new hire reports must meet state filing deadlines and include mandatory first-day-of-work data.
QuickBooks employers with workers in North Carolina are responsible for filing new hire reports with the state’s New Hire Reporting Program, and the software pulls the needed data directly from employee records — but only if those records are set up correctly and the filing deadlines are understood.
Filing Deadline and Frequency
North Carolina requires employers to submit new hire reports within 20 days of hiring, rehiring, or an employee returning to work. For employers who file electronically or magnetically, the state expects two monthly transmissions — spaced 12 to 16 days apart — for any month in which there are employees to report.
Who Must Be Reported
Employers doing business in North Carolina must report any employee who resides or works in the state and to whom they anticipate paying earnings. That broad net catches several categories:
New Employees
Anyone the employer expects to pay must be reported — even if the individual works a single day and is terminated before the report is filed.
Rehires and Recalled Workers
Employees returning after a layoff, furlough, separation, leave without pay, or termination must be reported. The same applies to anyone who stays on the payroll through a break in service or gap in pay and later returns. Teachers, substitutes, and seasonal workers all fall under this rule.
Temporary Employees
Temp agencies must report any worker hired for an assignment. The worker is reported once — not each time they are placed with a new client. However, if the worker experiences a break in service or a wage gap from the agency, they must be reported again as a rehire.
What QuickBooks Populates on the Report
QuickBooks draws from the employee setup record to complete the fields the state requires. Understanding how each field behaves helps avoid filing errors.
Employee Date of Birth
If you have entered a date of birth in the employee setup, QuickBooks imports it onto the new hire report. This field is optional for North Carolina, so you can remove it from the report if you prefer not to share it.
Date of Hire
QuickBooks imports the hire date from the employee record. North Carolina defines the hire date as the first day the individual performs services for wages or other compensation. If the date in the employee record does not match this definition, you can edit it on the report.
First Day of Work
This field is mandatory. North Carolina defines it 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 thing, QuickBooks automatically copies the Date of Hire value into the First Day of Work field. If the two dates genuinely differ for a given employee, review and correct the value before submitting.
Common Sticking Points
The recurring issues users run into stem from incomplete or inaccurate employee records. If the date of birth or hire date was never entered during onboarding, QuickBooks has nothing to pull onto the report. The First Day of Work field, while auto-populated, inherits whatever is in the hire date — so an incorrect hire date propagates to a mandatory field.
Seasonal and temporary staffing situations create the most confusion. Employers and agencies sometimes assume a returning seasonal worker does not need to be re-reported, but North Carolina’s rule is clear: any break in service or gap in wages triggers a new rehire report.
Practical Takeaway
Before generating a North Carolina new hire report in QuickBooks, verify that each employee record contains an accurate hire date and, if applicable, a date of birth. Confirm that temporary and seasonal workers who returned after a gap are included. The software handles the formatting and field transfer — the responsibility for completeness and timely submission rests with the employer.