Change your primary principal, payroll admin, or other payroll contact

QuickBooks helps you manage your business's payroll. If you need to change the person in charge of payroll, here’s how to do it in QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

In this article, you'll learn about:

• Change the Principal officer info
• Change the Primary admin info
• Change the Company admin, Standard user, or Reports only user
• Change the Payroll contact info
• Change the Primary principal user info

Prerequisites

Make sure your payroll subscription is active.

If you aren’t sure what roles or permissions you need, review Understand payroll roles and permissions

QuickBooks Online Payroll

Select the role you would like to change or update:

Change the Principal officer info

1. Sign in as the Primary Admin and Company Admin.
2. Go to Settings ⚙, then Payroll settings.
3. From the Bank accounts section, select Manage payroll principal officer information.
4. Select Edit ✎ to change your principal officer info.
5. From the dropdown ▼, choose the reason for the change.
6. Update your principal officer info, then select Save.
7. We’ll send you a verification code to make sure the changes are correct. Once you verify, the changes are applied immediately to your account.

Note: If your phone number has changed, or the current Principal Officer isn't available, including if they are deceased, you'll need to create a new account to set up a new Principal Officer.

Change the Primary admin info

1. Select the icon of your name’s initial at the top right.
2. Select Manage your Intuit Account.
3. You’ll be directed to accounts.intuit.com page. From there, you can update your personal info. 

Update the admin’s personal info only

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Manage users.
2. From the Action column, select Edit.
3. You can update the name and email.
4. Select Save changes. 

If you need to to transfer the primary admin rights to another payroll contact, check out Change the Primary admin user in QuickBooks Online.

Change the Company admin, Standard user, or Reports only user

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Manage users.
2. From the Action column, select Edit.
3. You can update the name, email, or the role.
4. Select Save changes, then Update info to confirm.

Change the Payroll contact info

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Payroll settings.
2. From Contact information, select Edit ✎.
3. Update your payroll contact info.
4. Select Save then Done.

QuickBooks Desktop Payroll

Change the Primary principal user info

1. Complete the Primary Principal change form.
2. Have the current and the new principals sign the request letter. If the current principal isn't available to sign, indicate the name on the letter. Explain the reason for the change.
3. Get a photocopy of the new principal's government-issued ID.
4. Contact QuickBooks Desktop payroll support to submit the form, request letter, and ID via Intuit File Exchange.

If you’d like to add a secondary principal:

1. Complete the Primary Principal change form.
2. Have the primary and secondary principals sign the request letter. On the letter, state that they’ll add another principal.
3. Get a photocopy of both primary and secondary principals' government-issued ID.
4. Contact QuickBooks Desktop payroll support to submit the form, request letter, and ID via Intuit File Exchange.

The principal change takes 3–5 banking days from the date we receive the documents. You’ll get a status email from us.

Related links

• Understand payroll roles and permissions