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, @arkvalleyinfo.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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/L1wtTcHJN_US_en_US