Switching Payroll Providers

Interested in transitioning your payroll services to Square Payroll? Our team makes it simple and easy to change providers, regardless of the time of year.

Transition to Square Payroll in 3 steps:

Step 1: Gather your required business information

• Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN)

• State Employer Tax Information

• Legal business name, business type, and address (as registered with your EIN)

• Bank account number and routing number

• Year-to-date (YTD) gross pay for each of your employees.

• Payroll reports from your prior payroll provide. Here’s how you can pull those reports.

• Employee and contractor email address (if you are enabling employee online accounts)

• Employee and contractor details:

  • Physical mailing address

  • Social Security Number

  • Tax withholding information

• Former W-2 employee details so we can generate their W-2s at the end of the year

When setting up your account, please provide previous payroll records for the current tax year to Square Payroll. This information is required to ensure accurate tax withholding and reporting for current and past employees that are added to Square Payroll.

You can upload this report to your payroll dashboard. If you need help locating your report, you should be able to ask your prior provider for directions on how to pull this report, or you can contact support or further assistance.

If you have 1099 contractors in addition to W-2 employees, read more about transferring historical contractor payment information for accurate reporting on Form 1099-NEC.

Step 2: Go to squareup.com/payroll and click Get Started

1. Enter the business information listed above.

2. Enable two-step verification to protect your account from unauthorized access and to add an additional layer of security.

3. Select your pay schedule.

4. Add your W-2 employees and/or 1099 contractors to Square Payroll.

5. Upload your year-to-date payroll records when prompted to do so during the setup process.

Step 3: Close your old payroll account

• Save all payroll and employee records. This includes breakdowns of your quarterly (QTD) and year-to-date (YTD) gross pay and prior state and federal tax filings.

• Maintain your employee records. Square Payroll will generate W-2s for all employees that you paid within the calendar year, including those who are not currently working for you. We need to have your employees’ addresses, social security numbers (SSN), and YTD gross pay with tax breakdowns to ensure that their W-2s are accurate

• If you’re switching in the middle of a quarter, clarify which tax payments and filings your former payroll provider will be making on your behalf. Your previous provider should refund quarterly taxes collected but not submitted to the IRS and/or state (SUI, FUTA, and ETT) to you. Square Payroll will re-collect and submit those specific taxes on your behalf. Your prior provider should pay any federal and state income taxes collected. Please contact us if they are not so we can be sure your payments are up-to-date.

Check out a full description of Square Payroll’s features to see how we can save you time and money paying your team!