Get started with QuickBooks Online Payroll

Learn how to set up your new QuickBooks Online Payroll Core or Advanced payroll service.

You’ll need to complete a few tasks before you can pay your employees. Here’s a handy guide to help you get set up.

Note: If you're looking for an article on Standard Payroll setup, see here.

Tip: If you're not sure which QuickBooks Online Payroll plan you have, sign in to your account. Then, refresh this page for personalised steps, or follow these steps if you're the primary admin:

1. Go to Settings and select Subscriptions and billing.
2. The name of your payroll plan is in the second box.

Step 1: Get started on your payroll setup

We want to make payroll painless for you. Add business and employee info to create payroll payments right away in QuickBooks and print or handwrite cheques. Then you’ll come back to the setup and work through Step 2: Complete your payroll setup tasks below.

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for the product to syncronise with your QuickBooks Online file when adding Payroll to your QuickBooks Online service. If you do not immediately have access to the Payroll service when adding it for the first time, or when re-subscribing to the service after an initial sync error or failure, please wait 24 hours before contacting our Care team for support.

To launch the payroll setup:

1. Sign in to your account as the primary admin.
2. Go to Payroll, then select Overview (Take me there).
3. Select Get started.
4. Select if you (or someone else) paid employees in the current year.
5. Select the date when you want to start paying your employees through QuickBooks.
6. Enter your main business address.
   • Enter a physical address (not a PO Box). The work location determines your tax responsibilities.
   • If you have multiple work locations, you can add those later when you add your employees.
7. Enter your main payroll contact info.
   • This is generally the person responsible for paying your employees. The payroll contact will get important payroll notifications from us, and may speak with our payroll experts about your payroll account.
8. Select how you’ve run your payroll in the past.
   • Depending on your answer, you may be able to import employee and pay history info instead of entering it manually.
9. Now you’ll start adding your employees. See Add your team below for details.
10. If you haven’t paid any of your employees this year, you can opt to pay them now by paper check if needed. Or you can continue the setup and finish the remaining setup tasks. See Set up tasks below.

Step 2: Complete your payroll setup tasks

We know it takes time to get your payroll information into QuickBooks, so setup is designed to allow you to add info at your convenience and save it as you go. 

The tasks can be completed in almost any order. There are a couple of additional tasks if you've already paid your employees this year.

To get to these tasks:

1. Go to Payroll, then select Overview (Take me there).
2. Select Start on the task you want to work on.