QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits

To resolve “QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits”, upgrade the payroll subscription plan, check your payroll service, refresh your payroll service, and make your employees inactive.

“QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits” error occurs when you’ve exceeded the maximum number of active employees and are trying to access the features that your current payroll subscription plan doesn’t support.

Exceeding your payroll subscription limits blocks access to features like e-filing, direct deposit, paycheck creation, and automated tax payments. It causes system lags or crashes during payroll processing, preventing tax table updates, and forcing manual tax filings.

Depending on your subscription, you have a specific usage limit of accounts or users at a time in QuickBooks Desktop. These limits apply to how many billable users, chart of accounts, classes, locations, and tags you can add to your software. Reaching your usage limits doesn’t allow you to add any more payroll items in the QuickBooks desktop application.

Why QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits?

There are a few reasons why you’re getting the error “QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits”.

• The number of active employees exceeds the subscription limit.
• Adding a large number of payroll items, such as custom deductions or benefits.
• An outdated, lapsed, or expired payroll subscription.
• Trying to access the payroll features that aren’t included in your current subscription plan (Gold, Silver, Diamond, Platinum).

Key Takeaways: What to Do?

1. Make inactive employees no longer required.
2. Check your payroll plan type.
3. Sync your license and Payroll data.
4. Upgrade your Payroll Subscription Plan.
5. Adjust a limit on a Payroll Item, such as deductions or benefits.

Solutions for QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits

To fix the QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Limits error, follow the solutions outlined below:

Solution 1: Check QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Service Subscription

1. Close all your company files and restart your computer.
2. Open QuickBooks, navigate to Employees, select My Payroll Service, and then click on Manage Service Key.
3. Verify the Service Name and Status are accurate and displayed as Active.
4. Click Edit and check the service key number in case the status shows as Canceled. Or, enter the correct service key if it’s incorrect.
5. Select the Next icon and uncheck the Open Payroll Setup box.
6. Click Finish.

Solution 2: Upgrade Payroll Subscription Plan

Check out the available subscription plans to see which payroll service is right for you:

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Desktop company file as the Primary Admin or Payroll Admin.
2. Choose Employees, then select Payroll Centre.
3. In the Payroll tab, click Manage my account under Subscription Status.
4. Product Information displays the current payroll service in use.

Note: Contact the QuickBooks Payroll Support Team to upgrade or downgrade your QuickBooks Desktop payroll service.

Solution 3: Refresh Payroll Service

Adhere to the steps to refresh your payroll subscription:

1. Step: Navigate to Employees> My Payroll Service> Manage Service Key.
2. Step: Click Edit at the bottom under the QuickBooks Service Keys window.
3. Step: Note down your service key and click Add.
4. Step: Enter the service key in the service key field.
5. Step: Select Next and click Finish.
6. Step: When the Payroll Update message appears, press OK.
7. Step: Verify that the Service Status displays as Active.
8. Step: Hit the OK tab.

Solution 4: Sync License Data

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions allows up to 30 users to work on the same company file at the same time. You can manually update the new license information if QuickBooks is installed on a computer without internet access.

• In QuickBooks, navigate to Help and then select Manage My License and Buy Additional User Licenses.
• Choose the phone option.
• Enter the validation code received upon purchase of the additional license.

Additional Solutions

After trying all the previous methods, you might still face the “QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits” issue. In that case, the problem likely lies elsewhere. Let’s break down the cause and how to fix it.

Problem 1: A Minimum Limit Exists for Adding Payroll Items

Solution: Change a Payroll Item Limit

Go to the Payroll Item List page to change a payroll item limit:

1. Navigate to the List menu in your QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Select Payroll Item List.
3. From the Payroll Item drop-down, choose Edit Payroll Item.
4. Make the necessary changes you wanted for under the Edit Payroll Item window.

Important: The Liability/Expense Account Associated with the item, How to Calculate the item, and/or Default Rates and Limits (The rates and limits entered will affect all employees). Make a note that you can’t edit the payroll item type in case you want to change it, create a new payroll item.

5. Hit the Next button and then click Finish.

Payroll items for State or Federal taxes cannot be edited. This is due to their reliance on payroll tax table updates.

Problem 2: Exceed the Number of Active Employees

Solution: Make an Employee Inactive in QuickBooks Desktop

1. Choose Employees from the menu bar and then select Payroll Centre.
2. Under the My Payroll Service section, hit the Employees tab.
3. Select the employee and then click Edit.
4. Open Employment Info and then enter the Release Date.
5. Fill out the necessary fields and press OK once complete.

Problem 3: Hit a Payroll Funding Limit

Solution: Increase the Direct Deposit Limit

The message “QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reached the Limits,” particularly concerning direct deposit, indicates the company has reached a payroll funding limit assigned by Intuit for the QuickBooks Payroll subscription. The limit relates to the total direct deposit amount processed in a single day or the volume of transactions processed.

QuickBooks implements limits on direct deposit amounts for security. When the direct deposit amount exceeds the usual range, a message appears stating: “Your payment amounts are much larger than usual. If you still want to make these payments through direct deposit, request a direct deposit limit increase.”

1. Step: Understand Direct Deposit Limits
   • Direct deposit limits are set per payroll.
     • Per payroll means the total amount of direct deposits for all your employees or contractors paid in 6 days (including weekends) from the paycheck date.
     • Per person means the direct deposit amount for one employee or contractor paid in 14 days (including weekends) from the paycheck date.

Step 2: Request a Direct Deposit Limit Increase

Requests for your direct deposit limit increase are reviewed within 2 business days, and you’ll get the results via email.

Note: QuickBooks may ask you to send your bank statements to approve the amount you’re requesting.

You can submit an online request to increase your direct deposit security limit. To use the Intuit Payroll Limit Increase Request tool, you’ve to correctly answer the following questions. If the information entered in this request does not match their system, your request cannot be completed. Navigate to the Account Maintenance section within your product to make sure this request is completed properly.

Send bank statements for the last 6 months of the payroll bank account to ddlimits@intuit.com if requested.

Problem 4: Create Multiple Company Files Under the Same EIN

Solution: Remove EIN from your Payroll Subscription

You can use a single payroll subscription to process payroll for multiple companies with different EINs. Each QuickBooks Desktop Payroll service can have up to three EINs. If you’re subscribed to Enhanced for Accountant Payroll, you can add up to 50 EINs.

Each EIN can only have one company file, and if you have a company file that you no longer need access to, you can remove the EIN from your payroll subscription.

1. Go to Employees, then choose My Payroll Service.
2. Click Account/Billing Information.
3. Log in using the email associated with your payroll account.
4. Hit the Payroll Details tab, then click Manage EIN.
5. You’ll see the list of EINs under Manage EIN.
6. Select the EIN of the company file you don’t need access to and then press Remove.

What is the Maximum Number of List Entries in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise?

List entries help you to better manage your company data. They keep track of things such as customers, vendors, services, inventory items, and non-inventory items. Each list type supports up to four levels of child accounts. An unlimited number of child accounts are supported under a parent account.

Note: Certain list types appear only in newer versions of QuickBooks Desktop for Windows, not available in older versions.

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 17.0 and later versions allow you to add up to one million names (customers, vendors, employees) and up to one million items (for example, inventory, non-inventory, and service items).

To check the list size in QuickBooks Desktop, hold and press the F2 key or Ctrl+1 and review the List Information section or the File Size under the File Information section of the window.

For custom fields, the table provides totals that are a combination of the allowable custom fields for customers, vendors, and employees:

Enterprise Solutions: There’s a total of 30 Customer/Vendor/Employee custom fields, but you can’t have more than 12 per category.

Note: QuickBooks will warn you when you exceed a limit.

QuickBooks Enterprise Limitations On Per User

Enterprise max capacity is 100,000 customer, vendor, employee records.  All records, regardless of whether they are Inactive or Active, count towards this total. QuickBooks gives you no warning that you are coming close to reaching capacity.

QuickBooks Enterprise can accumulate 100,000 total names (Employees, Customers, Vendors, and Other Names combined) and allow you to scale from 1 to 40 users who can all work at the same time.

Recommendation: You can upgrade your payroll subscription plan to Diamond if you hit a certain limit, as it gives you more functionality to automate your business.

What Happens When QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription Reaches Its Limits?

Let’s have a look at what typically happens when you see a message stating, “QuickBooks Enterprise Payroll Subscription reaches the limits.”

• You can’t process payroll, such as creating paychecks, submitting direct deposits, paying more employees, and adding new companies (EINs).
• Tax calculations might stop.
• You won’t be able to add a new EIN if you’re managing multiple companies simultaneously.
• Payroll forms (like W-2s or 941s) won’t generate.
• E-file and E-pay payroll features stop working.
• Direct deposit gets disabled.