You have listed one of several work arounds for making this happen. My point is that it is absolutely ridiculous that there has to be a work around! My employees receive their email about their payroll as soon as I hit 'finish payroll', even if I do it early in the week (which is not an issue unless it is a surprise bonus check). Now, if you call Quickbooks they will tell you that the employee does not have access to it until the actual payday (day it deposits in their account). But that is wrong because I have tested it multiple times. It is almost 2022 and it is crazy to me that this is still an issue. The employer should have complete control of their books, even when it comes to payroll & Workforce.

Yes that is one option to several for working around this problem. My point is that this should not still be a problem! It is almost 2022....why does the employer not have complete control? If you call Quickbooks support they (I talked to several different people there) will tell you that the employees do not receive their email until direct deposit date, but that is WRONG. I have tested it multiple times and they receive it when I hit 'Finish Payroll'. If I make a change before the cut off, then they receive an updated email. It's a shame that I have to tell them how their system works. And an even bigger shame that we are still talking about this a year later.

I know that this hasn't been easy for you, kittkat75.

I understand how important for the employer to take control of the information sent to their employees.

If an employee has a QuickBooks Workforce account, they'll receive an email every time you run payroll for them. Unless your employee turns off the email notification on their own, the employer has no way to stop it.

While the option isn't available, I recommend sending suggestions to our Product Development team. Once the request is approved, they can include this option in a future update.

Here's how:

1. Click the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter your product suggestion.
4. Hit Next to submit.

Alternatively, you can revoke their QuickBooks Workforce so they won't receive any notification. To do this, you can follow the step provided by my colleague JonpriL. Then, you can send an invite again once done creating a bonus check. Please refer to this article for more information: Invite your employees to QuickBooks Workforce to see pay stubs, W-2s, and more.

I'm always here if you need further assistance, just leave any details below. I'll get back with more information. Take care and stay safe.

I have the exact opposite problem in that I issued bonuses yesterday and no one received an email letting them know it was processed.  These same employees always get an email as soon as a regular payroll is processed.  Did Quickbooks change something super recently related to this?  

Hi TrishaCashman,

Your employees may have turned off the option to receive notifications when payroll is ready. You can verify this through the Employees menu. 

Here's how:

1. Click the Employees menu.
2. Select Manage Payroll Cloud Services.
3. Under QuickBooks Workforce, turn ON Workforce.

I've also added this reference that talks about viewing paychecks online: View your paychecks and W-2s in QuickBooks Workforce.

Let me know if there's anything that I can help with. Keep safe!

No, they haven't.  I have doubled checked and they get emails for Payroll every time it's run.

Have there been any updates to this in 2022?

Have there been any updates in 2022 to allow employer to prevent workforce notifications from going out?

I'm getting ready to process annual bonus checks this week to hand out at our annual employee party. The owner relly doesn't want these notification emails sent to employees because it ruins the excitement and surprise. So do these directions actually work and won't allow the employee to view the bonus check amount??

Yes, that will do the trick, Mgoodman.

You can have your employees turn off the email notification in QuickBooks Workforce. This way, they won't get a reminder every time a new pay stub is available. Here's how to do it:

1. Sign in to your Workforce account.
2. Go to the Gear icon.
3. Select Email Notification.
4. Uncheck the Send me an email when new pay stubs are available box.

Alternatively, you may temporarily revoke their access to view their paychecks online. I'll show you how:

1. Go to the Payroll menu.
2. Select the Employees tab.
3. Click the employee name to open the profile.
4. Choose Turn off Workforce access, from the Actions drop-down menu.
5. Select Confirm to save the changes.

Then, resend the invitation email after the event. To learn how to print employee pay stubs and track time off balances and year-to-date pay, check out this article: Use QuickBooks Workforce.

Post again here if you have further questions about managing employees and payrolls. I'm always around to help. Have a good one. 

Thank you for this!  I am glad we can now turn off access!

You’re always welcome, @jerens.

I’m glad to know that the information and guidelines outlined by my colleague above helped you learn about turning off employee email notifications in QuickBooks Workforce.

Rest assured, every concern posted in the Community will be addressed accordingly. Having said that, don't be hesitant to ask any other QuickBooks questions you may have here.

I’m hoping for your business to prosper. Have a wonderful day!

I guess this is the only work around? Asking employees to turn off notifications would definitely not work. Sadly going in and revoking access to almost 50 employees is a lot of extra work...then only to have to go in and undo everything at a later date. Quick books really needs to prompt to send notifications at the time bonus checks are processed. A simple step there asking if you want to send employee notifications would be a yes or no question versus all these steps just for one time a year process.

• You guys (Quickbooks Team) are completely missing the point! I am not going to ask my employees to turn off their notifications in workforce. We do not want a work around. The employer should grant the access to view paystubs, not the employee. Furthermore, the employee should NOT be able to view anything until the actual pay date. My employees are emailed as soon as I process payroll.

Just FYI...I tested this work around theory since I was processing our regular payroll cycle today and I revoked access to workforce from employee before running processing payroll. Well...that didn't work and Intuit automatically sent an email that paystubs were available online with a link to activate the account. So I'll let you know revoking access does not work. Please help!! I'm processing bonus checks tomorrow and this is really quite a bummer that there isn't a resolution for this.

@Mgoodman  Thank you for testing this.  I am glad you posted, because I would have done it and it would have sent the email.  It doesn't make sense!  @RoseJillB Is there a bug in the functionality of revoking access?  

Hello, Mgoodman & jerens. Let me direct you to the support available that can assist you with this one.

Revoking workforce access will also turn off upcoming email notifications for your employees. Since the email notification was still sent automatically, I recommend reaching out to our QuickBooks Workforce Team. They'll be able to pull up your account securely and conduct further investigation in a secure environment.

You can use this link to chat with our Workforce Support agents: Workforce Direct Chat link. 

Furthermore, check out these items below for year-end tasks and how to manage employee payroll:

• Year-end checklist for QuickBooks Online Payroll
• Workers and employees

Please know that you're always welcome to comment below if you have other payroll-related concerns. I'm just around to help. Take care.

This question was posted 2018.  I have received multiple answers today 11.16.2022.  A little to late for the advice but Thank you all the same

Yes the problem has been active since at least 2018. I have dealt with this same issue for that long as well. I was  checking back with the thread to see if there was a "new resolution". I see that there is not, which is beyond frustrating to me. My intent was to make the Quickbooks Team aware that this issue is still ongoing by many of their users.

Just to let the community know --- this is what is foundationally wrong with Quickbooks Online --- Unlike Google, no one is listening to a 2018 product upgrade request and it's almost 2023 with over 50 messages on this topic.  I've been using Quickbooks as a CPA for over 30 years --- nothing has changed.   Another reason to stay with Desktop for as long as you can my friends.   Big brother knows best......

I was just trying to look into this myself, I came across this recent post that claims if you enter the check as a Bonus Only payroll, it will not send to Workforce. Can anyone confirm this is correct?

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/special-payroll/pay-employee-bonus/L1...

Yes, that's correct, Langley1.

Your employees won't be notified about their bonuses in QuickBooks Workforce. Feel free to follow the steps below to create a separate bonus check:

1. Go to the Payroll menu.
2. Select the Employees tab.
3. From the Run payroll drop-down menu, pick Bonus only.
4. Choose how you’d like to enter the bonus.
5. Select the employee, then enter the amount.
6. Click Edit, then pick the payroll options you want.
7. Hit Apply, then preview and submit your payroll.

I've also included some articles that will help you in tracking overtime pay and fringe benefits:

• Add overtime pay to an employee
• Add fringe benefits to paychecks

If you have any other payroll questions, just tag my name in the comment section. I'll take care of them.

So has this changed since 2021 that employees arent notified when a Bonus is processed? Because last year all of my employees received this emails immediately as I processed.

Also, to whomever is looking foe help on this DO NOT follow the guidelines I was provided to inactive Workforce for each employee. Because when I called I was told that would be the only way the employee wouldn't receive an email notification. That was a major fail to by Intuit and now that I've tried to reactivate Workforce, over half of my employees can't get back into their account. This has been a month long issue now. And seems Intuit can't even solve the problem after hours on chat with them. I wish Intuit had more user friendly active controls the employer could manage.

That is NOT correct! I ran payroll checks (not direct deposit) for my employees the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and they were notified as soon as I hit 'Submit Payroll'. I received phone calls from some employees stating they received an email paystub with zero hours on them and thought I made a mistake. So your Bonus Check feature (which I used) does not work the way you have detailed - unless you changed that feature in the last week? While I appreciate your team attempting to help, it would be nice if you knew how your software actually worked before handing out advice. I do not mean that to be rude at all, so please do not take it that way. It is beyond frustrating to reach out for help only to find that I know more about how your system works than your customer service team. It didn't use to be that way.