Quarter End Playbook
Navigate quarter-end successfully with essential guidelines, deadlines, and resources for payroll providers.
The Quarter End Playbook is your guide to navigating a successful quarter end with Check. Quarter-end is the process of balancing, filing, and remitting taxes during the filing month—the month after a quarter closes (e.g., April, July, October, January), when all quarterly agency deadlines occur.
As a payroll provider, your customers rely on you for a smooth filing season. The information below outlines the expectations, resources, and communications you'll need to best serve your customers.
- Preparation begins before the filing month. Use the Quarter End Preparation Guide to identify and resolve requirements in advance.
- Year End is a separate process that includes annual reconciliations and forms such as W-2s and 1099s. It follows a different timeline extending into February and does not overlap with quarter end processing. See the Year End Playbook for details.
What’s new for Q1 2026
- Timing for balancing variance collections - There will be more time between when balancing payrolls are approved and variances are finalized, and when money movement occurs.
- Balancing payroll waiver threshold — Transactions for balancing payrolls that would result in a total direct collection or refund of $1 or less will be waived.
- Tax Receipt - A new receipt is available for balancing payroll transactions, which breaks down the variances being fulfilled by the transaction vs. by an agency refund after filing.
- Filing statuses - We’re updating how we’re using Awaiting Tax Funds and the Pending status to add clarity to the state of the filing
- Automated refiles without support requests - When employers resolve a blocked filing reason caused by missing identifiers or an outstanding failed debit, Check will automatically attempt refiles for Applied For → ID available and when a company resolves bad standing blockers’
Key Filing Month Dates
Day | Q1 2026 | Event |
Before close of Quarter | March 30, 2026 | Balancing payroll drafts become available |
1st business day | April 1, 2026 | All outstanding employer tax account requirements must be submitted by this day to guarantee on time filing and payment |
2nd business day | April 2, 2026 | Balancing payrolls are approved and the associated funding transaction will move to the Pending status
Payment and agency refund amounts are visible in the Quarterly Variance Report, and individual Tax Receipts are available in Console and over API
Optionally: for partners using the direct-to-employer Communication, employers will receive an email + receipt detailing the scheduled transaction resulting from balancing (if applicable) |
After Balancing Payroll is Approved | April 2-9 | The Balancing Payroll is approved and the transaction is in Pending status
Communicate variances to employers before the transaction is sent, and for employers to ensure their accounts are sufficiently funded.
Note: the last time to Cancel a pending balancing transaction is Thursday, April 9th at 11:59 PM ET. |
8th business day | April 10, 2026 | Balancing collection and refund transactions (if applicable) are sent and balancing payrolls move into Processing
Draft employer copies of Q1 Quarter End tax returns are published |
9th business day | April 13, 2026 | Variance collections and refunds likely to land in employer’s bank accounts |
11th of the month | April 15, 2026 | Early filing deadlines begin and vary by state |
☑️ Key Partner Actions
During a filing month, Check advises that our partner teams either automate employer notification or perform daily review and communication of the following reports:
- Review scheduled collections and refunds → Review the Quarterly Variance Report in Console on the 2nd business day of the filing month to get ahead of communications needed before transactions are processed. See “Balancing Collections & Refunds” below for more details.
- Review blocked filings → Review the Failed Filings report in Console daily or integrate with Check’s Filing API to understand outstanding requirements for employers that prevent timely filing and tax payments.
Support, Corrections and Amendments
- SLAs: SLAs for Support are the same as they are all Year, and can be found here: Support and Risk SLAs. Support will no longer pause approvals for processing voids and refunds during the filing month. 🎉 The only exception to Check’s general SLAs will be amendment processing for the current quarter - amendment processing SLAs for the current quarter (Q1) will pause until the filing month closes.
- Corrections to Current Quarter Data: For corrected data to be included in the original filings the correction must be submitted ahead of the 20 day SLA window before quarter close (March 3rd, 2025). If the correction is not included in the original filing, we will process an amended return (where amendment fees will apply. Expect the amendment processing timeline to pause during filing month.
Filing Eligibility
Check determines who to file for based on the following criteria:
- Ran payroll on Check - The company must have an approved payroll managed on Check prior to the end of the quarter.
- Good Standing - The company must be in Good Standing. Check cannot file or approve balancing payrolls for companies that have existing standing conditions such as a failed debit.
- Active - The company must be active or have a tax file end date beyond the current quarter to be included. If a company terminated and did not ask for a filing, or it was an involuntary termination, Check will not file.
For sensitive or complex customers, it is also a good practice to review all Pending Filings in Console before the end of the quarter. If there are any pending filings that your customer does not want submitted on their behalf, you can opt out directly from the filing’s page in Console, provided that no wages were earned in that jurisdiction during the quarter.
Balancing Collections & Refunds
Balancing payrolls
At the end of each quarter, Check will need to collect or refund for tax adjustments that have accumulated throughout the quarter. This is a standard process in the payroll industry—taxes can fall out of balance for many reasons, such as a mid-quarter rate change or simple rounding drift over time.
Processing tax adjustments is necessary to be able to successfully file for companies at the end of the quarter.
In Check, tax variances are calculated and stored on a special type of payroll called “balancing” payrolls. These payrolls are available in draft after the first week of a quarter, and refreshed automatically every weekend. Then, on the 2nd business day after the close of the quarter, balancing payrolls are “approved” and variance collections or refunds are computed and scheduled for several days later.
Reviewing balancing payrolls
There are three (3) different reports available to you to review balancing payrolls and plan your communication to employers about upcoming variance collections. These are:
Report | Data Level | Description | Access From |
Quarterly Variance Report | Partner level | Total variances, payment amounts, and agency refund amounts for all companies across your employer base. | Console |
Tax Receipt | Company level | A per-liability breakdown of the balancing adjustments for the company, and which are fulfilled immediately vs. already paid to the agency and refunded after filing. | Console (+ Communications) |
Preview Report or Payroll Journal | Employee level | A breakdown of variances by employee and tax. | API, Console |
Quarterly variance report (Partner level)
The Quarterly Variance Report can be accessed by first navigating to the Reports tab in Console, selecting “Quarterly variance report”, and then selecting the current year and quarter.
Column definitions and examples
Column | Definition | Example Value |
Company ID | Unique identifier for the company in Check's system | com_GLNmgeXia8yioT968nSc |
Company Legal Name | Registered legal name of the company | Stark Industries |
Total Liability | Total tax variance amount on the balancing payroll | 295.12 |
Balancing Payroll | Identifier for the specific balancing payroll | pay_st1wudRlzHua3EzFqMRA |
Payroll Status | Current status of the payroll | paid |
Updated At | Timestamp of the last update to the balancing payroll | 2025-11-19T15:38:00Z |
Approved At | Timestamp of when the balancing payroll was approved | 2026-01-02T09:24:00Z |
Payment | Unique identifier for the payment transaction | pyt_HlSYFp9q8DhUhSIbJju6 |
Payment Type | Whether funds are being collected or refunded | Collection |
Payment Date | Date the payment was or will be processed | 2025-01-05 |
Payment Amount | Actual dollar amount of the payment transaction | 295.12 |
Agency Refund Amount | Portion of the liability being refunded from the tax agency after filing | 0.00 |
Writeoff Amount | Amount being written off rather than collected or refunded (applies when the Payment Amount is less than $1) | 0.00 |
The Quarterly Variance Report shows all draft balancing payrolls across companies, as well as payment amounts after the quarter is closed and balancing payrolls are approved. The most important attributes to review are:
- Total liability — the total variance amount from the balancing payroll.
- Payroll status — the status of the balancing payroll. This will move to pending once the balancing payroll is approved, processing once the transaction is sent, and paid or failed depending on the outcome of the transaction.
- Payment amount — the expected employer refund or collection amount from Check.
- Agency refund amount — the expected refund that the employer will receive from the agency after filing is completed.
The resulting transaction or pay adjustment can differ from the overall liability adjustment when funds have already been sent to the agency and cannot be refunded directly to the employer.
- If Check still holds the funds for a given tax and they exceed the amount due, Check will refund the employer.
- If Check no longer holds the funds, the amount will be over-reported on the return so that the agency can process a refund.
Tax Receipt (Company level)
You can generate a receipt alongside every quarter-end balancing payroll that gives employers a clear, self-serve breakdown of any resulting money movements.
The Tax Receipt will be available once the Balancing payroll is approved and can be accessed via Console as a PDF. You can view the Receipt by clicking “Download Receipt” either on the balancing payroll on the Payroll Details page or the balancing transaction on the Transactions page. We expect to add the ability to access the PDF and JSON of the Tax Receipt via API in Q2 2026.
Optionally: for partners using the direct-to-employer Communication, employers will receive an email + receipt detailing the scheduled transaction resulting from balancing, if applicable.
Preview report / Payroll journal (Employee level)
Finally, you can access a breakdown of variances by employee using either the Preview report (if the balancing payroll is still in draft), or using the Payroll journal (if the balancing payroll has already been approved).
One reason this may be important is if there are sizable variances that were calculated on employee-paid taxes, and the employer should be notified in order to reconcile those variances with employees directly. While this is uncommon, it can occur due to corrections, voids, or variances in historical data.
To access this breakdown, first navigate to the balancing payroll in Console (which you can do by searching for the payroll ID in the search bar, or by navigating to Payrolls for the company and selecting the balancing payroll for the quarter). Then, open the “…” menu in the upper right and select Export payroll journal. Console will automatically generate either a Preview report or the Payroll journal, based on whether the balancing payroll has been approved.
Understanding the root cause of tax variances
Common example causes of tax variances are:
- (Most common) Mid-quarter rate changes — For example, if a company’s state unemployment rate changes mid-quarter, then payrolls that were calculated during the quarter before the rate change was entered in Check will produce a variance.
- Exemptions added or removed — If an exemption to a tax was added or removed mid-quarter, then payrolls that were already processed may produce a variance to retroactively add or remove the tax.
- Mistakes during company setup — A company’s historical payrolls may have been entered with incorrect subject wages or tax amounts.
- Rounding throughout the quarter — Simple rounding differences between calculating a tax payroll by payroll vs. in aggregate on the entire quarter may produce minor variances.
- Other agency-imposed requirements — For example, credit reduction states for FUTA are announced in November ever year, and will appear as tax variances for employers in the affected states in Q4.
- Additional variances — When Check is filing, there may be times where we realize an additional collection or refund is required, resulting in additional debits or credits to your Employers throughout the filing month.
Using draft balancing payrolls proactively
- For large expected variances, communicate early. Proactively notify employers well in advance of Quarter End.
- If the balancing preview looks wrong, escalate quickly. If you have identified the root cause of tax variances and believe that corrections are required, create a Support request with the “Corrections + Amendments” request category. Addressing it early increases the chances it can be resolved before filings.
Waivers on Net Transactions $1 or Less
Beginning Q1, 2026, any net transactions resulting from balancing payrolls that are $1 or less will be waived and will not be initiated to employers. This applies to both net refunds and net collections below this threshold, and it aims to reduce unnecessary noise and minimize support tickets related to small transactions while maintaining employer trust.
Note: Waived refunds (<$1) will be tracked and returned to the employer at a future date as a credit on a future payroll run or upon employer termination.
Blocked Filings & Payments
A filing blocker occurs when either the core requirements for a filing are not met (company not in Good Standing or missing a tax account ID) or an electronic tax return filing is rejected by the agency during submission. Working with companies to resolve these blockers is a top priority so that filings and payments can be submitted on time.
How Check handles filing blockers
- Current filings take priority. During filing month, on-time current-quarter filings are processed before any refiles for failed returns.
- If blockers are resolved during the filing month. Once the company resolves the blocker, Check will make every reasonable attempt to refile the return before its due date.
- Note: a Refile fee is not assessed for any filings processed before the due date.
- Penalties and interest. If, despite these efforts, the due date is not met, Check will not be responsible for any penalty and/or interest associated with the original failure.
Early visibility into blocked filings and payments
To help you stay ahead, the Failed Filings Report is available for download now in Console.
- Check surfaces proactive blockers based on agency rules and known constraints before filing begins.
- Agency identified blockers typically surface within ~24 hours of the filing attempt for all bulk electronic filings and are added to the Failed Filings Report throughout the filing month.
Check recommends daily review of blocked filings to minimize late filings and post-filing month support burden.
⚠️ Paper fallback is not supported
A valid Tax ID is required for all electronic filings. If a company’s Tax ID is marked as Applied For, the return cannot be included in an e-file. At the same time, agencies are rapidly phasing out acceptance of paper returns—many will no longer process paper filings with an “Applied For” account number at all.
Because of this industry shift, Check will no longer support paper fallback.
If an agency offers electronic filing or payment but the company has not provided the required information (e.g., a valid Tax ID) or authorization (e.g., TPA), the filing will be treated as a blocked filing or payment, not a fallback paper submission.
To avoid delays and filing blockers, we strongly recommend that companies register for all applicable taxes as soon as they know they will hire in a new state or locality.
For step-by-step state registration instructions, refer to our
Types of blockers and how to resolve them
Blocking Reason | Cause | Resolution Step |
Company is in Bad Standing
company_bad_standing | The company has an unresolved failed debit or existing unresolved standing condition. | Resolve the failed debit or standing condition to remove all related blockers.
✨ Check will then automatically attempt to file or refile if provided during the filing month. |
Missing or Invalid Tax ID
applied_for_tax_id
invalid_tax_id | The company either has not registered for an account number or has not provided one to Check. | Provide the account number to Check to remove the filing block.
✨ Check will then automatically attempt to file or refile if provided during the filing month. |
Partial Failure/Invalid SSN
invalid_ssn | The agency will not accept a tax return with an invalid Social Security number, and the wage data was updated to remove applicable employee wages. | Correct the impacted employee or contractor SSN.
🎟️ Request a refile or amended return via Check Support. |
Invalid Tax Rate
invalid_tax_rate | The agency will not allow a return submission with an incorrect tax rate. (This is only expected for Oklahoma Unemployment.) | The company must supply the valid tax rate for the current year.
🎟️ Request a refile via Check Support once corrected. |
POA/TPA Failure
poa_failure
tpa_failure | This was either not completed or a step was missed during the attempt to complete it. | TPA • The company must attempt or reattempt the TPA assignment.
POA • A new POA must be signed by the Owner/Officer of the company. POA failures are a direct result of an invalid signature. These forms are available in the Filing Authorization component.
🎟️ Request a refile via Check Support once confirmed. |
Inactive account
inactive_account
incorrect_account_setup | Either an invalid Tax ID was provided by the company or the agency has closed the account due to inactivity. | The company must validate the account number. If the account number is accurate it is necessary for the company to contact the state and reactivate their account.
✨ Opt out of the filing as needed
🎟️ Request a refile via Check Support once resolved if desired. |
Already filed
already_filed | The company had a filing submitted by a different payroll provider. This is the result of incorrect offboarding from a prior provider or the company has churned. | Confirm the company intends to file. If they have churned, process a termination through Console.
If they intend to file with Check, obtain a copy of the return that was filed on their behalf to allow for an amended filing.
🎟️ Then request an amendment via Check Support with a copy of the original filing data. |
Missing Historical Data
missing_historical_data | A state may require the tax return filing to reflect each tax payment that was paid to them in the quarter. If the filing does not reconcile to the payments, the agency will reject the return. | Deposit reports and/or payroll reports should be re-requested from the company to identify what was missed in the original implementation.
🎟️ Request a refile via Check Support once corrected. |
One or more prior quarters is missing
missing_prior_quarter | The agency will not allow a filing when a prior quarter hasn’t been filed. This is specific to Louisiana Unemployment. | Either the date of registration should be corrected to remove the requirement for the prior quarter filing or a filing must be completed. Check will not file returns on periods before the company’s first processing quarter.
🎟️ Request a refile via Check Support once resolved. |
Filing is Held by the Company or Partner
held_by_customer | Company has requested hold on the filing. Check support then applies this blocker to the related filing. | 🎟️ Request to remove this blocker via Check Support once resolved. |
Employer Copies of Tax Returns
Employer copies of tax returns will be posted by the 8th business day of the month. Keep in mind these may not be the final versions. Changes to payroll data or agency feedback may result in updated values, and all updates will be reflected in the Documents endpoint and in Console.
Note: Check will provide employer copies regardless of whether the company is balanced or in Good Standing.
How to think about employer copies
Employer-facing copies are changing significantly this year:
- They are not filed when posted.
- They are for employer records only
- They cannot be filed by the employer.
- In rare cases, what is filed may differ from the original employer copy—but we will always update the employer copy to match the data actually filed with the agency.
Visual appearance of employer copies
There will be significant visual differences between Check’s Q4’2025+ forms and prior to Q4’2025 documents. This is a visual difference for the Employer copy only and over time will improve consistency and readability across all tax returns.
Employer copies are formatted to reflect the data filed with the agency, not to match the agency’s paper form (many agencies only publish electronic specs, not a standard PDF). Employer copies will also change visually to improve consistency and readability. Several high impact forms will match the familiar agency provided PDF, those forms will be:
- Federal forms (all types)
- High-volume state combinations:
- New York combined
- Oregon combined
- New Jersey combined
- All Washington forms
- California
- UT SUI
- Employer-regulated forms:
- Nebraska SIT
- Arizona SIT
- Michigan SIT
All other employer copies will have an updated appearance that preserves the essential elements needed to match the information filed with the agency.
Post Quarter End
- Refunds of Unremitted Tax Funds - Any tax funds that Check was unable to remit during the filing month (for example, due to missing Tax IDs or unresolved blockers) will be refunded to the employer five weeks after quarter close. These refunds are surfaced in the Quarterly unremittable tax refunds report in Console.
- Refiles After Filing Month - Once the filing month ends, all refiles require a Check Support ticket. These requests follow Check’s standard 20-day SLA for amendments and corrections.