Oregon New Hire Report in QuickBooks: Fields, Filing Window, and Fixes

QuickBooks Desktop includes a built-in New Hire Report tailored to Oregon’s state requirements, but users generating the form for the first time often find that several fields carry over from employee setup — some accurately, some not — and a few require manual attention before the report is ready to submit.

Filing Deadline and Who Counts as a New Hire

Oregon requires employers to submit the New Hire Report to the Oregon Employer New Hire Reporting Program within 20 days of hiring or rehiring an employee, or when an employee returns to work. The state defines a “new hire” as any employee who is required to complete a W-4 form. A returning employee who has been absent for more than 45 days is also treated as a new hire for reporting purposes.

What the State Requires

Oregon asks for the following on the report:

• Employer name and address
• Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)
• Employer contact name and phone number
• Employee name and address
• Employee Social Security Number
• Employee’s first day of work

The state also encourages — but does not require — employers to include the employee’s date of birth.

Generating the Report in QuickBooks

To produce the Oregon New Hire Report from within QuickBooks Desktop:

1. Open the Employees menu.
2. Select Payroll Forms or Payroll Center, depending on your version.
3. Choose New Hire Report (sometimes listed under State Forms or Other State Forms).
4. Select Oregon as the state if prompted.
5. Choose the employee or employees you are reporting.
6. Review each field on the form before submitting — QuickBooks auto-populates several entries from your company and employee records, and not all of them transfer correctly by default.
7. Use the Help button on the form window itself if you need guidance on navigating the form or troubleshooting a specific entry.

Fields That May Need Manual Correction

Several fields on the Oregon New Hire Report deserve close attention because QuickBooks fills them automatically from existing data — and that data is not always accurate or current.

State ID Number

QuickBooks pulls your Oregon State ID Number from your company setup. This field is optional for the state program, so if you prefer not to share it, you can delete the value before submitting.

Employee Date of Birth

If you have entered a date of birth in the employee’s profile during setup, QuickBooks imports it here. Like the State ID, this field is optional. You can remove it if you choose not to report it.

Employee Date of Hire

QuickBooks transfers the hire date from the employee record. If that date does not match the actual hire date — for instance, if the setup was created ahead of time or the start date changed — you can overwrite it directly on the form.

First Day of Work

This is the field that catches the most users off guard. Since 2012, federal law has made “First Day of Work” a mandatory field. The state 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 value from the Date of Hire field into the First Day of Work field. If those two dates differ in your situation — for example, an employee who was hired on paper on a Monday but did not start working until Wednesday — you need to manually correct the First Day of Work entry before submitting.

Common Pitfalls

The most frequent issue users run into is assuming the auto-populated dates are correct. Because QuickBooks draws from employee setup records that may have been entered speculatively or updated after the fact, the hire date and first day of work can drift from reality. The state program expects accurate information, and the 20-day filing window leaves little room for back-and-forth corrections.

Another common snag is the optional fields. Some employers assume they must include the State ID and date of birth because QuickBooks fills them in. Both are voluntary under Oregon’s program, and removing them is as simple as deleting the contents of the field.

For broader QuickBooks payroll help and field-level troubleshooting across state forms, the built-in Help button on the form window is the quickest way to access version-specific guidance without leaving the report screen.