The Roundabout of "Employee Manager" (aka: 'Employee history')

In 2020, a relatively little-used functionality was removed from QuickBooks Enterprise. I'm talking about a feature called "Employee Manager." This feature allowed you to track various 'HR' functions like hire and termination dates, promotions, pay raises, title changes, family information, performance reviews, and many others. It even allowed you to set calendar reminders for an employee's performance review or next scheduled pay raise.

"Employee Manager" was part of the Enterprise product, not part of QuickBooks Payroll for Desktop; however, it shared some data with QuickBooks Payroll. When "Employer Manager" became available within Enterprise, QuickBooks Desktop Payroll fields were mainly limited to the bare essentials required to produce payroll checks and W-2 reporting information. So, adding "Employee Manager" provided significant opportunities for tracking personnel-related records. 

I wish I could remember if "Employee Manager" had been part of the collection of small business software programs that Parsons Software had developed, which became Intuit's property when they purchased Parsons. I recall (as best I can remember) seeing a cardboard box version of "Employee Manager" next to Parsons' QuickVerse Bible software in one of those computer hobbyist stores eons ago, but maybe I am just dreaming.

I recall Intuit commenting back in 2020 that "Employee Manager" had so few users that it wasn't feasible to continue offering and supporting the product within QuickBooks Enterprise. At the same time, several of my own clients who had been using it commented that with the loss of "Employee Manager", it was "back to the spreadsheet" to track their employees' historical data.

Within a few years of the demise of "Employee Manager," QuickBooks Desktop Payroll added a few fields to capture expanded employee data. They even changed the employee data layout in the 2024 version, but nothing has since existed to track pay-change by pay-change over multiple years.

You are now wondering, "Murph, why are you off trekking down 'memory lane'?"  Well, a version of "Employee Manager" (or so it pretty much appears) is returning to Enterprise Suite. Oh, not QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Suite; no, I'm talking about Intuit Enterprise Suite.

A new "Employee history" feature was recently released for Intuit Enterprise Suite with QuickBooks Online (Premium or Elite) Payroll as part of the subscription. According to Intuit, this new functionality allows users to "monitor historical changes to employee data all from a single, streamlined view."

The "Employee history" window (example shown below), a tab under Payroll, allows users to track historical updates, including managerial changes, department transfers, pay adjustments, and title changes, as well as changes to employment status, hire dates, legal names, and address changes.

The new feature is touted as providing "better-informed decisions on promotions and raises with clearer visibility on each employee's history…"

Of course, "the times they are a-changin'₁." Intuit Enterprise Suite is designed for the mid-market, especially for companies with multiple entities. That means more people to track, more coming and going of team members, more pay increases not to forget, and more transfers between entities to keep straight. Promotions and title changes are another complexity; it seems some people change titles, office locations, and managers faster than you can write them down. And the bigger your organization grows, the more these things occur. So you need a way to track them.

So, the old saying, "What goes around, comes around," fits this story as a perfect ending. "Employee Manager", even if they call it "Employee History," has come back home.

Welcome back to Enterprise Suite, "old friend."

^{Footnotes and Disclosures}

^Footnote(s):

₁ - ^{"the times they are a-changin'.", adapted from a 1964 song by Bob Dylan, from his album The Times They Are a-Changin', released March 8, 1965 by Columbia Recording, produced by Tom Wilson.}

^Disclosures:

_{Feature content (including graphic) was partially adapted from Intuit media source content regarding Intuit Enterprise Suite. Content created or otherwise adapted by Insightful Accountant from Intuit source content is furnished for educational purposes only.}

_{As used herein, QuickBooks^®, QuickBooks (Desktop) Enterprise (Suite), and Intuit Enterprise Suite refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit^® Inc., a publicly traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California.}

_{Other trade names or references used herein may refer to registered, trademarked, or copyrighted materials held by their respective owners and are included only for informational and educational purposes.}

_{This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. No vendor associated with this article has paid Insightful Accountant or the author any remuneration to be included in this feature. The article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.}

_{Note: Registered Trademark ® and other registration symbols (such as those used for copyrighted materials) have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they would otherwise appear or be repeated. We attempt to credit such trademarks or copyrights within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.}