After reading the comments I understand that Intuit does not have a company global option for turning Workforce on or off.  

I want to know if there a way to turn an individual employee connection to workforce OFF?  The employee does not want anyone to have this option and some employee already have created an account that he does not want them to have.

We just had this same thing happen.  All of our employees received the email on their personal accounts and at 2:00am (talk about unprofessional) with our company name as the sender.  I was able to turn off Workforce, but now have to draft an explanation email to my employees asking them to disregard the email and apologize for the confusion.  This is incredibly unacceptable on Intuit's behalf.

Hi!  Another unhappy user about this here... If you are running Quickbooks Desktop, you can go to Employees from the top menu bar and select "Manage Payroll Cloud Services."  You'll be able to turn off on the screen that pops up.  Hope that helps!

I found that toggle but when I try to switch to off, it requires my direct deposit PIN, which is turned off and has not been turned on in the 11 years I've worked here.  That being said, anyone know how to acquire the PIN?  Apparently, some previous employee started to set up direct deposit before I came along and I've been on the phone to Intuit several times, I found a fax form in QB to send in with the company president's drivers license and have sent that in at least 6-7 times.  NOTHING has worked.  NOBODY has gotten back to me on how to rest that PIN, or do away with altogether. 

Hi there, CHTF.

Thank you for visiting the QuickBooks Community. I can see that things have been challenging for you when turning off the workforce in QuickBooks Desktop. With this, I'll be sharing steps to ensure can achieve your goal without entering a PIN in the program.

Please know that if your Direct Deposit option in the QBDT is enabled, you must enter a DD PIN while turning off the workforce on the program. With this, I recommend changing your PIN in the Send Payroll Data box to reset your payroll service PIN. This guarantees that the new PIN information is restored for direct deposit processing, allowing you to avoid entering a pin while turning off Workforce.

Here's how:

1. Login to your QuickBooks company file as Admin.
2. Go to Employees, then choose Send Payroll Data.
3. In the Send/Receive Payroll Data window, select Send.
4. From the Payroll Service PIN window, choose Forgot your PIN?
5. Enter your QuickBooks company file Admin password.
6. Click OK.
7. Create a new PIN and confirm it. 
8. Select Submit.

You can open this article to see further details: Change direct deposit PIN in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

If the issue persists, I suggest contacting our QuickBooks Desktop Support Team. They have the tools to pull up your account in a secure environment and be able to investigate the cause of why you keep needing a PIN to turn off Workforce.

Lastly, I'm adding this article so you can view instructions on how to create a particular report to see your payroll totals, including employee taxes and contributions: Create a payroll summary report in QuickBooks.

You're always welcome to post if you have any other concerns about payroll or managing your employees in QBDT. I'm always around to help, CHTF. Wishing you and your business continued success.​

It infuriates me that QB took it upon themselves to contact all our employees without my consent. They are using my account for their marketing purposes.

I do not enter an email for any employee in their profile and then there is no way for QB to contact them.

I also do not check the button that asks if you want QB to send something ? I forget what.

But it is automatic they will reach out to all your employees . AUTOMATIC unless you do the above to stop them.

I see there are many other QB users just as unhappy about this change as I am.

I totally agree. If you are still using QB Desktop Premier or Pro you know by now that you have to have an ANNUAL RENEWING ACCOUNT popping you full price every time. If you also do payroll this is also increasing.  I think one the reason they are doing the workforce is so they can track how many employees you per pay period as I was told with my payroll annual renewal you will pay $5 per employee every month even if you are doing all the work and issuing paper checks. Payroll is now $ 650.00 plus the $ 5.

My feeling is they are price gouging Pro and Premier to get every on to change to QBO or Enterprise. There are never any program updates I need to expect to renew and change every year - still using 2022 at this point. But they could focus more on keeping true to their word on PR updates.  It has been over a year and they still have nothing for my states mandatory PTO tracking that we have to issue quarterly statements to employees. It took them 6 months to update to not add PTO to NON_WORKED (Hol, Vac, PTO) hours.  What a nightmare that was backing it all out.

I am sorry this doesn't help with the above problem but hopefully I have given you some important intonation.

I cant find anything in that article that actually lets you opt out.

Hello there, @SylviaMc.

Let me help and provide information about Workforce access in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

To start, you can't opt out of Workforce. To ensure you will not be using the workforce, I suggest not inviting an employee. The workforce is a free feature. As long as you don't invite an employee, then you're not using the workforce and there is no need to cancel this feature. You may also refer to this article to know more about what you can do with the workforce: QuickBooks Workforce. 

In addition, you might want to run and customize payroll reports in QuickBooks Online. This helps you view valuable information about your business and employees.

Don't hesitate to leave a comment below If you need further assistance about the Workforce. It's our priority to help you in any way we can.

Sylvia - Are you in QB Online or QB Desktop?

If Online you cannot opt out.

If on Desktop:

Go to Employees>Manage Payroll Cloud Services and toggle it to OFF.

Then you can hit the X at the top and close that window, it will confirm your payroll subscription and you're done!

At least this is how it is in my version (2021) and hopefully your desktop is similar.

I am being forced to go to 2024 subscription or forced onto Enterprise (!)  We are located with minimal internet service and have to have a desktop platform. (Besides we loathe the online version for numerous reasons).  Hopefully Workforce services won't be forced upon us too.

Additionally, do not store any of your employee email addresses in QuickBooks.

I have turned OFF Workforce and QuickBooks is still forcing me to enter personal data before I save a new employee

I use Desktop and I did turn off Workforce and it updated as you described. Tried to put in a new empoyee and It is still forcing the enter of their personal data.

We have to have the email to create a Time sheets user. I cannot go back and take out all of the current employee's e-mails.

Stop this forced disclosure of our employees who do not consent to this.

I opted out of Work force in the set up screen. It has not changed. Still wont let me save a new employee without the personal data.

Agree Quick books is intrusive and does not supply support. It is up to us users to figure it out,

Illegal I would say

Perhaps I should call the Kansas Corporation Commission. We operate in Kansas

I believe you still have to have the employee info (like their email, name, address, SSN) because it is making payroll checks or direct deposits and/or making a W2 & W3 forms at the end of the year.

The "Workforce" thing - is the invasive sharing to your employees of putting their stuff in a cloud and it inviting & allowing them to make their own passwords to get their pay stubs etc.

I don't allow Workforce (we don't want cloud hooey) but you still would have to put in the person's info into employee details so the forms can be made.

What I'm not clear on is the "TimeSheets" - I don't use that in Desktop but if you're talking about the ability for remote employees to be able to enter their own time into an online time sheet, then that is in the cloud.

If you are meaning YOU are entering in their time sheet info and you do not have WorkForce checked, it will only keep their info in your desktop and use it to make tax forms and differentiate employees (like if you had 3 people working all named John Smith - it could tell them apart and make your W2 forms etc.)

Hope this helps!!!!

Did that. It still makes me put private information that IS NOT needed. QuickBooks does not provide W-2 Tax filing or paychecks.

This is an overreach of privacy. I have reported this to my State Senator who will refer this to the appropriate oversight Agency.

Quick books does not provide this for us. There is no need for Intuit to have this information.

All payroll is processed off sight and we only do an internal "Payroll" to spread costs to the jobs.

Oh that is interesting - I see - I did not realize you weren't using them for Payroll but just to track and then use an outside company for running payroll.

If you are not running payroll is there a reason you have to do the time sheets this way? 

Are you just trying to use a built in time sheet for your own time tracking so you can send to your private payroll company?

I never played with this feature but I just tried opening Employees>Enter Time and DO NOT Have "Activate QB Time" chosen (cuz I never activated it!) but then I chose either Use Weekly Time Sheet OR Single Activity.  I can choose both.

Then it lets me choose a name from ANYTHING - Employee, Vendor, "Other Name" etc that I have save in the system.  I even tried Grocery stores or Amazon or whatever - it is not demanding any other info than name.

It seemed to let me add whatever hours all the way across on a weekly time sheet.  I think you might be able to do what you are trying to do by NOT entering the people as "Employees" but instead as "Other Name"

An Employee is very specific and does require name, address, SSN, etc for tax and insurance reasons and in case you are ever audited, but you can still manipulate QB to track things without using that.  Just create your people then as "Other Name"

I did not try and save the fake sheet  created (cuz I don't want this saved in my system somewhere - LOL) But I am thinking it will then likely let you run a report under Reports>Job, Time & Mileage>Time by Name

Maybe that will work for you if that's all you are needing?

If not, there are also sites that you can track time on like this:

https://timecardcalculatorgeek.com//index.php

Is this any help?

Beware.  You are probably signed up for payroll and don't even know it.

How dare QuickBooks make it even harder for those who do not want it. 

Rubbish. This is not how my QuickBooks looks. Bad advice