Last updated: Dec 17, 2025, 10:50 AM
If you are switching your payroll service to Toast Payroll mid-year, we will require certain information from you regarding earnings for the year for all current and former W-2 employees. Toast's payroll tax services start in the quarter in which you start running payroll in the Toast Payroll system. Toast Payroll will handle the annual filings for that whole year, which means that we need to gather the entire year's worth of payment and tax data. We're here to help make this as smooth as possible. Your Onboarding Consultant can assist you with this to determine the best approach for pulling information from your prior payroll provider.
Once you go live with Toast Payroll (after running your first payroll), you'll want to cancel with your previous payroll provider, if applicable. Failure to end services with a prior payroll provider could result in duplicate, inaccurate, and/or incomplete tax filings in future quarters and helps ensure your employees are not issued an incomplete Form W-2 from your prior provider. The Tax Center in Toast Payroll will notify you prior to your first quarter-end tax filing with Toast to ensure you have cancelled with your previous payroll provider
If you are switching to Toast Payroll from another provider mid-quarter, confirm how/when tax amounts that are due at the end of the quarter will be remitted to you. Toast Payroll will debit your payroll account within two weeks of your first payroll to ensure we can pay these on your behalf by the quarterly deadline.
Toast Payroll needs this information for anyone who has been paid under an FEIN in the current year, whether they are active or terminated. Terminated employee pay data is necessary in order for Toast to create the terminated employee's W-2 at the end of the year and for annual company level tax returns.
Pay data falls into 2 categories: data from payrolls with a check date in the current quarter and data from previous quarters.
Earning, deduction, and tax total amounts are needed for each employee in each previous quarter of the current year (i.e. if you are switching to Toast Payroll in Q4, we will need 3 separate files for Q1, Q2, and Q3). This info also required for each individual FEIN that is onboarding with Toast Payroll (i.e. if you have 2 FEINS, we will need one file per FEIN from each quarter). The data must be broken out by type/code:
Pay Data Needed for the Current Quarter
In order to ensure accurate tax filings, we will need the same information , with the addition of:
We will need the following tax information (a quarterly tax package will usually have everything needed on this list):
Please provide employee direct deposit information if you are switching from one of the following providers:
Once direct deposit information has been added into Toast Payroll, we highly recommend visiting the Direct Deposit status report by navigating to Settings > Payroll > Direct Deposit. Any employees who appear within the Employees with incomplete direct deposit information tile will be until their direct deposit information is . Once this import is complete, only an employee themselves will be able to add or update their direct deposit information.
If you are a QuickBooks Desktop user, access the following information and send it to your Onboarding Consultant in a .xlsx file (Excel). Follow the instructions below to access the required information in QuickBooks. We are here to help if you require assistance.
This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.