Virginia New Hire Report in QuickBooks: What Employers Need to Know
QuickBooks generates Virginia New Hire Reports, but certain fields require manual review to ensure compliance with state filing requirements and deadlines.
QuickBooks Desktop includes a built-in New Hire Report formatted for the Virginia New Hire Reporting Center, but employers running payroll for Virginia workers frequently encounter confusion about what the state requires, which employees must be reported, and which fields on the generated form need manual attention before submission.
Filing Deadline and Transmission Rules
Virginia law requires employers to submit new hire reports to the Virginia New Hire Reporting Center within 20 days after an employee is hired, rehired, or returns to work. For employers who file electronically or magnetically, the rules tighten further: transmissions must be sent twice per month, and the gap between submissions cannot exceed 16 days. Missing those windows can create compliance headaches, so payroll administrators should build a cadence that keeps submissions within the state’s required intervals.
Who Must Be Reported
The Virginia report covers a broader set of workers than many employers realize. QuickBooks users need to understand three categories the state expects to see on submissions:
New employees. Anyone who resides or works in Virginia and is expected to receive earnings must be reported. This applies even if the person works a single day and is terminated before the report is filed. The obligation is triggered by the expectation of payment, not the duration of employment.
Rehires and returning employees. Workers who come back after a termination or a leave without pay must be reported again. The requirement also extends to employees who stay on the payroll during a break in service or gap in pay and then resume working. That covers teachers, substitutes, seasonal staff, and similar situations.
Temporary agency workers. Staffing firms are responsible for reporting each worker they hire for an assignment. A worker needs to be reported once, not re-reported every time they move to a new client. However, if the worker experiences a break in service or a gap in wages from the agency, they must be reported as a rehire when they return.
Fields That May Need Manual Entry
QuickBooks populates much of the New Hire Report automatically from employee setup records, but several fields warrant a closer look before the form goes out the door. Relying on the defaults without checking them is where most users run into trouble.
Date of Birth. QuickBooks pulls this from the employee record if it was entered during setup. The field is optional for Virginia’s purposes, so employers who prefer not to share it can delete the value before submitting.
Hire Date. The software imports the hire date from the employee profile. If that date does not match the actual hiring date, users can overwrite it directly on the form.
First Day of Work. This is a mandatory field, and Virginia defines it as the day an employee first performs paid work. Because most employers treat the hire date as the first day of work, QuickBooks automatically copies the hire date into this field. Users should verify that the copied date is accurate, since the state will reject or flag a submission where this required field is missing or incorrect.
Medical Benefits Availability. This field is optional. Employers who choose to include it should enter “Y” if medical benefits are available to the employee or “N” if they are not.
Employee State of Hire. QuickBooks imports this from the employee setup when it has been entered. While optional for single-state employers, it becomes a required field for multi-state employers, so companies operating across state lines should confirm the value is present and correct on every reported employee.
Getting the Report Right
The core issue users face is not that QuickBooks fails to generate the Virginia New Hire Report, but that the automated field population can mask gaps, especially for the mandatory First Day of Work field and the multi-state Employee State of Hire requirement. Payroll administrators should treat the generated form as a draft, verify each field against the employee record, and confirm that all reportable workers, including rehires and short-term temporary staff, are included before transmission.
For broader guidance on QuickBooks payroll workflows and troubleshooting, the core help library covers common setup and reporting scenarios that intersect with state compliance requirements.