Processing Intuit QuickBooks Payroll Causes a Random Error and Forces QuickBooks to Close

One of our QuickBooks Enterprise users started to get an error whenever they would run payroll and create checks. The process would complete and checks would be created but QuickBooks would display an error message "An unexpected error has occurred in 'Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions: Professional Services 14.0' and then the application would close.

It is suspected that there was an update applied that changed the security settings in the application that caused this issue because when another user that was an administrator of QuickBooks ran payroll the problem didn't occur. In addition the error message in the Windows Application Event log indicated that the failure was related to access to the employee template file, "Failed adding medicare tax item to employee template - Permission error".

The user profile for the person running payroll was updated to include the following permissions, which resolved the issue.

Roles List

--Employees & Payroll

--- Employee Organizer

--- Paychecks

--- Payroll Adjustments

--- Payroll Liabilities

--- Payroll Service Activities 

Depending on the role and activities required of the person processing payroll, these permissions might vary slightly. If you want to know specifically what is required to run payroll, review the predefined role in QuickBooks named Payroll Processor.

We hope that this information is helpful. Please let us know how this has helped you or if you have additional questions. As always Firestone Technical Resources, Inc. is here to help with your computer support issues - "Providing personal service for your impersonal technology."