We give employees bonus checks, but they get an email about it before we hand them the check. Is there a way to stop employees from getting an email about a bonus check?

Hello there, @meganp.

Welcome and thanks for joining us here in the Community. I'm here to share some information about stopping employees from getting an email notification when creating a bonus check in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

The option to stop the email notification when creating checks or bonus checks is currently unavailable in QBO. However, if your employees have signed up to QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck), they can log in there to turn off the email notification by themselves. Here's how:

1. Have your employee sign in to QuickBooks Workforce.
2. Select the Gear icon at the top left corner, then choose Email Notification.
3. Turn the email notification on/off by toggling the checkbox Send me an email when new pay stubs are available.

For future reference, you may check out our article or provide this to your employees for more information (scroll down to Working in QuickBooks Workforce): QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck): Online Payroll FAQs. Just in case you need it, here's a helpful article that tackles creating bonus checks in QBO: Create bonus checks only.

I can see how this feature would be helpful for you and your business. Since this isn't currently an option, I encourage you to submit a feedback to our Product Development Team for review when determining features to be added in updates. This can be done directly through your account by clicking the Gear icon in the top right corner, then select Feedback or by going to the following link: QuickBooks Online Feature Requests. I'm going to submit feedback from my side as well.

That should answer you concern for today. Please let me know how it goes or if you have any follow up questions. I'm only a post away if you need further assistance. Take care and have a great weekend.

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@FritzF wrote:

 

 

The option to stop the email notification when creating checks or bonus checks is currently unavailable in QBO. However, if your employees have signed up to QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck), they can log in their to turn off the email notification by themselves. Here's how:

 

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Aha. So the employer could instruct the employee to log in their to turn off the email notification. 

What about making it a paper check?  Would they get an email notification then? 

Good day, kimd1.

Thanks for reaching out to the Community. I'm here to provide information about the email notification.

Once an employee opt-out to email notification through the QuickBooks Workforce website, there will be no email sent to them. Employees will only receive email notifications again if they enable the option.

In case you want to know more about QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck), visit this article:

QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck): Online Payroll FAQs

The Community team is always around to help you. If you need anything else, please let us know by leaving a comment below.

I was searching for this as well. I don't think "hey, you are going to get a bonus but we want it to be a surprise...can you please go in your portal and turn off notifications?" is a good idea. I wish there was an option to deselect email notifications.

We appreciate your thoughts about the email notifications, jenniferjones.

I'd recommend sending this suggestion to our Product Developers. They update QuickBooks a lot, and this could be added in a future release. 

To send feedback, go to: http://feedback.qbo.intuit.com/ and click the Give feedback link or click the Gear icon and select Feedback. I'll also share this information with them.

If there's anything else you need help with QuickBooks, please let me know. Thanks.

So, if we do paper checks for a bonus does QBO still send out email notifications?

Good day, @sthrnbelle.

Thanks for joining the thread. I can provide clarification on email notifications when creating a bonus check in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

As discussed by my peer, an email notification will be sent to your employees when you create a bonus check. This is available by either direct deposit or paper check, once the option is enabled in the QuickBooks Workforce website.

To know more about QuickBooks Workforce, check out this link: https://community.intuit.com/articles/1770810.

Having this option in QBO is indeed a great idea, and I’d appreciate if you send your product suggestions straight to our Developers for consideration in future updates. To do so, simply go to the Gear icon and select Feedback.

You may also send your feedback by going to the following link: QuickBooks Online Feature Requests. I submitted this suggestion on my end to reinforce your request as well.

That's it. Please know you can always reach me here if you need anything else. Take care and enjoy your day!

Hello FritzF,

I am the one having problems syncing my bank act to QB, I tried what you suggested but is not possible to copy the URL because the have secured in a safe zone so cannot copy the url there, what do you suggest might be a possible other solution.

Regards, 

AL

Hi there, @angelicalam15. 

I appreciate you for trying the steps provide by my co-worker @FritzF in this thread: Please help I cannot connect my banking account even when I have verified several times the correct .... 

Since it isn't possible for you to copy the URL of your bank for security reasons, I'd suggest you contact your bank to verify if they are supporting your bank account to connect with QuickBooks. 

Feel free to click the Reply button below the thread on your original post. We're always delighted to help. 

Yes, for the employees that are already signed up with direct deposit.  If you print a bonus check...as soon as you hit submit, the employee is emailed "view paystub"  There is currently no way to surprise and employee with a bonus check

Its pathetic that there is no solution to this, and it has been OVER A YEAR since this thread started.

As an employer, this is extremely frustrating! Just had this happen to us again this year and will NOT let it happen again. It is absolutely ridiculous that the employer does not have the availability to control this function, especially with the amount of money we pay to run Quickbooks Payroll. If Intuit does not resolve this issue SOON then we will use another company in the future. I realize that losing one customer will likely not phase you at all. This issue is too important to my company to let that stop us though.

Could you create them and write the check but not approve them until after they are distributed?  I agree you shouldn’t have to work around but I’m hoping this will work for me this year.

Right because that wouldn't be weird at all lol

Yes, we do paper bonus checks and they get the email as soon as we submit. Ruins the surprise

We will have to do it this way. It would be great if they came up with a way to bypass the email notification for paper checks/christmas bonuses! Here's hoping for next year...!! 

I can't believe I don't have control over this.  What if I create a termination check??  Employee gets notified first-

Hi there, lindasuedonovan.

This isn't the kind of service I want you to experience using QuickBooks Online when creating a termination check.

As mentioned above, the option to stop the email notification when creating checks or termination check is currently unavailable in QBO. Once you invited your employees to signed up for QuickBooks Workforce to see their pay stubs and W-2s, you can ask your employee to log in from that account. From there, they'll have the option to turn off the email notification by themselves. Please provide the steps provided by my collage FritzF to your employees. You can also share this article with your employees to see different information on how to manage their workforce account: View your paychecks and W-2s in QuickBooks Workforce.

You'll also have the option to cancel your employee’s invitation to QuickBooks Workforce. Please follow the steps below.

1. Select the Payroll menu and Employees section.
2. Choose the employee you need to cancel the invitation to.
3. In the Personal info section, select Revoke Access next to We’ve invited [employee] to view their pay stubs and W-2s online with QuickBooks Workforce.
4. Choose Revoke Access.
5. Hit Done.

For additional details, you can refer to this article: Invite your employees to QuickBooks Workforce to see pay stubs, W-2s, and more.

Please open this article to see steps on how you can change an employee status so they are no longer appear on your active payroll list: Terminate or change employee status payroll.

Know that you can always swing by if you need help with anything else. We're just a comment away. Have a wonderful weekend.

We have the same issue here, and it's such a bummer to have this kind of surprise spoiled. I don't want to ask employees to "turn off notifications" as that defeats the purpose of the whole benefit of Workforce. I created a workaround, which only works for paper checks. It's a bit messy, but at least it accomplishes the goal of making the bonus a surprise:

1.  Add each employee as a vendor (I just use Name-v for display and their first and last name as the payee on the check).

2.  Date the check with the date you plan to distribute the checks.

3.  Enter the net amount of the bonus and assign it to some temporary expense account such as Suspense or Uncategorized Expense (make it easy, you're going to delete these checks once you run the bonus payroll). 

3.  Make a note of the check number for each employee - really important as you'll need this when you run the bonus payroll. It helps if you do this in the same order as your employees are shown in the payroll list.

4.  AFTER the checks are distributed, run the bonus payroll and date the run with today's date (the date you run the bonus).

5.  Select Paper Check for all employees by clicking on Direct Deposit and changing to Paper Check.

6.  Make sure to select net amount so QBO will calculate the taxes correctly and most importantly so the check will match in the banking window as it clears your account.

7.  Run the bonus payroll and enter the check numbers for each employee. 

8.  Submit the payroll.

9.  Delete the checks created and classed to the temporary expense account. 

10. If you find the matching in the Banking Window is not exactly matching the cleared check with the employee check, click Find Other Matches and from that list select the check. 

Just note, once you run the bonus payroll, you may have some employees asking if this is an additional bonus, it is not, it just shows up in Workforce once you submit the payroll.

This should be a simple fix for Intuit. It is frustrating that we cannot control when the e-mails go out to employees.  It is not just bonuses. I also hate that quickbooks sends out an e-mail notice as soon as I run the payroll not on the pay day.  It is a simple fix that should be implemented.

Here is an update. 

Workforce will send an email to the employee(s) every time payroll is ran....for direct deposit, or paper check. This year I had to create a regular check for the bonus amount, then go in and run the payroll after the checks were distributed and delete the regular check that I generated. I only did it this was because I have 5 employees. As our company continues to grow, this will NOT work for our company. Again, there are things I like about Quickbooks, but the list of my dislikes continues to grow!

I created the Bonus Check but didn't process them, I hand wrote them and gave out during Holiday party.. On Monday, I processed as paper check for recordkeeping.  I have less then 50 employees so it was easy, but QB you must work on something to solve this problem. 

Can we revoke access and resend later?