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Add your new employee to QuickBooks Payroll

by Intuit• Updated 2 weeks ago

Learn how to set up your new employee in QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

Congratulations on gaining a new employee! 

Before adding your employee in QuickBooks Payroll, Get your employee’s info such as TD 1 info and banking details. 

If you need to change an existing employee’s info, see Edit or change employee info in payroll instead.





Step 1: Add your employee

Note: Not sure which payroll service you have? Here's how to find your payroll service.

You can add all your employee info yourself or set up some info then invite your employee to add the rest.

Set up and add all employee info.

Inviting your employees to add their information can save you a lot of time, especially if you have many employees. This will also give them the option to view their pay stubs and T4s/Relevé-1s online at any time. Note: This is only available after you’ve completed your initial payroll setup.

Add your employee to payroll

  1. Go to Payroll and select Employees (Take me there).
  2. Select Add an employee.
  3. Add your employee’s name and email address. If you want them to enter their own personal, tax, and banking info, select Yes, allow employee to enter their tax and banking info in Workforce. QuickBooks will automatically email them an invite to QuickBooks Workforce. Your employee can enter their address, Social Insurance number, TD1, and banking info.
  4. Select Add employee.
  5. Select Start or Edit to any section to add the remaining employee info. 
    • Note: If employee self-setup is on, you won’t be able to edit some fields in the Personal info, Tax withholdings, or Payment method.  If you do want to edit those tabs, from the Personal Info turn off Employee self-setup at any time.
  6. When finished adding info to a tab, select Save.

Set up employee default

You can set up employee defaults in QuickBooks Desktop for things that apply to all or a majority of your employees. Each time you add a new employee, the defaults will automatically appear on the employee profile to save you some time. This can include things like:

  • Pay schedule or frequency
  • Sick or vacation policies
  • Province worked/Federal tax
  • Earnings or deductions

To access the employee defaults you must be signed in as the QuickBooks Admin:

  1. Navigate to Edit and select Preferences.
  2. Select Payroll & Employees, then Company Preferences.
  3. Select Employee Defaults, then enter the changes that you want.
  4. Select OK twice to save changes.

Add your employee to payroll

  1. Go to Employees and select Employee Centre.
  2. Select New Employee and enter the employee’s information. Below is a list of required fields in each tab:
    • Personal: First and last name and SIN
    • Address & Contact: Home address and email address if you want to invite your employees to view their pay stubs and T4s/Relevé-1s online.
    • Additional Info: no required fields
    • Payroll Info: Pay schedule or pay frequency, pay type and pay rate, Federal and other taxes. Add deductions, sick or vacation policies, and direct deposit if necessary.
    • Employment Info: Hire date
  3. Select OK.


Step 2: Complete the new province setup if you added an employee who lives/works in another province

If you received an email with the subject New info needed for company tax setup, or your employee lives and/or works in a different province from where your business is located, you may need to set up and pay taxes in that province.

Get employee info

  • TD-1 Form: Personal Tax Credits Return of personal data such as name, address, Social Insurance number, dependents and adjustments. Your employees can enter this info when you invite them, but you are required to keep a copy of this for your records.
  • Email address: Send your employees an invite to add their personal info and have access to their pay stubs and T4s/Relevé-1s online.
  • Work location: The address where your employee works.
  • Pay info: Employee’s salary or pay rate, other pay types, as well as pay schedule (how often you'll pay them)
  • Direct deposit info: Employee’s bank routing number and account number. Employees can add up to 2 bank accounts.
  • Pay history: This only applies if you're setting up your QuickBooks payroll service for the first time. If that's true, and you've paid your employees already this year, you’ll need their year-to-date pay stubs so that you can have accurate year-end totals for taxes, etc. We'll walk you through this, but be sure you have this info.

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