Invite your employees to QuickBooks Workforce to see pay stubs, W-2s and more
Learn how to invite your employees to see their pay stubs and W-2s online. You can also invite your new employees to add some personal info.
QuickBooks Workforce is a quick way for your employees to have access to their pay stubs and W-2s any time they need. Each time you run payroll, they’ll get an email letting them know their pay stubs are available to view and print. They can also view and print their own W-2s at tax time.
In addition, you can invite your new employees to add some of their personal info through QuickBooks Workforce, saving you some time on chasing paperwork and data entry. This is only available in QuickBooks Online Payroll or QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Basic and Enhanced.
Note: If your employee has access to your QuickBooks Online account, make sure they use a different email for Workforce than the one they use to sign in to QuickBooks Online.
Go to Payroll, then Employees.
Select Add an employee.
Add your employee's info, including their email address. This will automatically invite your employee to see their pay stubs and W-2s. They'll get an email with instructions to set up their Workforce account.
If you want your new employee to add their personal info, select the Ask this employee to enter their personal, tax, and banking info with QuickBooks Workforce checkbox.
Select Done.
Invite existing employees
You can invite multiple employees at once, or an individual employee to view their pay stubs and W-2s.
Go to Payroll, then Employees.
Select Invite to Workforce.
Check the boxes next to the names of the employees you want to invite and enter their email addresses.
When finished, select Send invitations.
What happens next
Your employee will receive an email with a link to set up and use QuickBooks Workforce to add their personal info (if you selected this option) and view their pay stubs and W-2s.
Once an employee accepts the invitation in the email, they’ll be able to create their own Intuit account. This allows them to manage their own user ID, personal settings, and security info.
To see the status of your employee’s setup, select Payroll, then Employees. Your employee list shows the status.
With QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and Elite your employees can track their hours with QuickBooks Time. Before an employee can start tracking time, you need to invite them to QuickBooks Time.
Step 1: Turn on QuickBooks Workforce and invite your employees
Invite existing employees
Sign into QuickBooks as the QuickBooks Administrator.
From the Employees menu, select Manage Payroll Cloud Services. If you don’t see Manage Payroll Cloud Services, update QuickBooks.
Under QuickBooks Workforce, make sure the status is ON, then select Invite Employees.
Sign in with your Intuit Account. This should be the person who owns the QuickBooks Payroll license.
Your employee list will appear. Select the employees to add to Workforce, then add their email addresses. Note: If the invite page doesn’t load, it might be a setting on your browser stopping it. In a couple of clicks, you can turn on ActiveX filtering. Then refresh the page, and you should be good to go.
Select Send Invite. Once sent, you should see Invited in the Status column.
Invite a new employee
Select Employees, then Employee Center.
Select Add New and add your new employee.
Follow the instructions above in Invite existing employees to send your new employee the invite.
Step 2: Upload paychecks and W-2s
You’ll need to upload paychecks after each payroll so your employees can access them in QuickBooks Workforce.
At the end of the year you also may need to upload your W-2s.
You can upload past paychecks created in QuickBooks Desktop for your employees to view. To prevent errors, upload previous paychecks after your current payroll processes.
Select File, then Print Forms, and then select Print Pay stubs.
In the Select Pay Stubs window, change the date range in the Checks Dated fields to include pay stubs that you'd like to send to QuickBooks Workforce. Note: We recommend selecting only current calendar year paychecks and uploading in batches of 100-200 paychecks at a time to prevent errors.
Click Send Online.
From the Send/Receive Data window, select Send All and enter your payroll PIN.
Note: Your employees will only see their W-2s from the current tax filing season.
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Basic and Enhanced
When submitting your W-2s in January, check the box Provide employees with secure online access to their W-2s forms on Intuit’s free QuickBooks Workforce site and in Intuit TurboTax.
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Assisted
Your W-2s are automatically available in QuickBooks Workforce for your employees after January 15.
What happens next
Your employee will receive an email with a link to set up and use QuickBooks Workforce to add their personal info (if you selected this option) and view their pay stubs and W-2s.
Once an employee accepts the invitation in the email, they’ll be able to create their own Intuit account. This allows them to manage their own user ID, personal settings, and security info.
If you use QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Basic or Enhanced, you can invite your new employees to add their personal info. You’ll need to add your new employee through the Payroll Setup Wizard, not the Employee Center. See Use employee self-setup for QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.
Note: This doesn't also invite your employees to view their pay stubs and W-2s. If you want your employees to have access, follow the steps above in Invite your employees to view their pay stubs and W-2s.
Employees can't add their personal info if you use QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Assisted or Standard.
There may be several reasons you need to resend your employee’s invitation to QuickBooks Workforce.
Your employee didn’t receive the original invite
Your employee’s email address is wrong
Your employee has a new email address
Resend or cancel an invitation
Select Employees, then select Payroll Setup.
From the Employee list, under Action, select the drop down, and choose the option to resend or cancel.
When finished, close the setup window.
Note: If the invite page doesn’t load, it might be a setting on your browser stopping it. In a couple of clicks, you can turn on ActiveX filtering. Then refresh the page, and you should be good to go.
Select Employees, then select Manage Payroll Cloud Services.
Under QuickBooks Workforce, turn OFF Workforce.
Once you've invited your employees to QuickBooks Workforce they can set up their account so they can view their paychecks, W-2s, and other employment info. Check out this video to learn how.
To watch more how-to videos, visit our video section.
If your employee can’t find their invite, you can have them do three things:
Check their spam or junk folder.
Make sure their email address is correct. If you use QuickBooks Online and your employee has access, make sure your employee uses a different email for Workforce than the one they use to sign in to QuickBooks Online.
If you use QuickBooks Online Payroll, your employees will have access for 12 months after canceling your payroll. After that, access is no longer available, so be sure to advise your employees to print their documents for their own record.
If you use QuickBooks Desktop Payroll, your employees will lose access immediately.
Your employees can view their pay stubs in the original payroll service until you cancel it. They will not be able to view pay stubs from the original account in the new account.
If you use QuickBooks Online Payroll , your employees will have access for 12 months after canceling your payroll. After that, access is no longer available, so be sure to advise your employees to print their documents for their own record.
If you use QuickBooks Desktop Payroll, your employees will lose access immediately.
You will need to invite your employees from your new payroll service.
Depending on the payroll service you use,W-2s are not immediately available on January 1.W-2s are automatically sent to QuickBooks Workforce once Intuit files them. They will typically be available after January 15.
If you use QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Basic, Standard, or Enhanced, you need to upload the W-2s at the time you submit them by checking the box Provide employees with secure online access to their W-2 forms on Intuit’s free QuickBooks Workforce site and in Intuit TurboTax.
If you use QuickBooks Online Payroll and you disabled Allow employees to import W-2 data into TurboTax your employees would not see their W-2 in Workforce.
Select Settings ⚙, then Payroll Settings.
In the section titled Shared Data, select Edit ✎.
Check the box Allow employees to import W-2 data into TurboTax.
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