North Dakota New Hire Reporting in QuickBooks: What Employers Need to Know

North Dakota employers using QuickBooks to onboard new staff have a built-in tool for meeting the state’s new hire reporting obligations, but the form’s fields and the rules behind them are not entirely self-explanatory. Here is what the community has established about getting the report right.

The Filing Requirement

North Dakota law requires employers to submit a New Hire Report to the Department of Human Services within 20 days of hiring or rehiring an employee. Since the start of 2012, employers with more than 24 employees at any time have been required to file electronically through the internet-based method provided by Child Support Enforcement. Employers at or below that threshold have more flexibility in how they submit, but the 20-day window and the data requirements apply regardless of size.

What the State Requires

The mandatory data elements fall into two groups. For the employer, the state needs the company name, address, phone number, Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN), and the name of a contact person. For the employee, the state requires the worker’s name, address, Social Security number, and first day of work.

The state also encourages — but does not mandate — two additional employee data points: date of birth and date of hire. QuickBooks users who have entered these in the employee setup will see them populate automatically, but both fields can be edited or left blank if the employer prefers not to share them voluntarily.

The “First Day of Work” Distinction

This is where confusion most often arises. Federal law made the first day of work a mandatory reporting field as of 2012, and the definition is specific: it is the date the employee first performs compensated work — not necessarily the date on the the offer letter or the orientation date.

Because most employers treat the hire date and the first day of work as the same thing, QuickBooks automatically copies the value from the Date of Hire field into the First Day of Work field. If those two dates genuinely differ for a given employee — say, someone was hired on paper on a Monday but did not start working until Wednesday — the employer must manually correct the First Day of Work field before submitting. Relying on the auto-populated value without checking it can result in an inaccurate filing.

Medical Benefits Availability

North Dakota also requires all employers to report whether they offer health insurance to the new hire. This is a simple yes-or-no field on the QuickBooks form. The employer enters “Yes” if health coverage is available to the employee and “No” if it is not. There is no middle ground or “not sure” option — the state expects a definitive answer.

Where the Data Comes From

QuickBooks populates the new hire form by pulling directly from the employee record the user has already created. The date of birth, date of hire, and related fields import automatically if they have been entered during setup. This integration is convenient, but it also means that any error in the underlying employee record will carry through to the report. Employers who discover a discrepancy — an incorrect hire date, for instance — can edit the imported value directly on the form before generating or submitting the report.

Practical Takeaways

The New Hire Report in QuickBooks is functional, but it is not a fire-and-forget tool. The auto-population of the First Day of Work field from the Date of Hire field is the most common source of error, particularly for employers whose hire dates and actual start dates do not align. The voluntary nature of the date-of-birth and date-of-hire fields is also easy to miss; employers who would rather not disclose that information can delete it from the form without running afoul of the state requirement.

For broader context on QuickBooks payroll compliance and reporting workflows, our coverage at qbo.support addresses common questions across state jurisdictions.