A new contractor payment option enables QuickBooks Online Accountants to offer clients the option to add contractor payments to their monthly subscriptions without opting into payroll.
Clients asked if they could use the integrated contractor payments center without having a payroll subscription. Until now, I have always had to relay to these clients; they must have an active QuickBooks Online Payroll subscription to have QuickBooks Online direct deposit contractor payments. However, it appears enough feedback was provided Intuit that now there is a new add-on that only ProAdvisors can offer to clients.
A bonus of using the QuickBooks Online Contractor payments selection is complete 1099 e-filing is included at no additional cost! I’ve been using the contractor payment option within my firm, and payments are easy to track in QBO without using a 3rd party importer and convenient to make the direct deposits.
Many of the clients I work with have contractors they work with in their growing small businesses, but they have yet to leap into payroll. Having the option to add-on contractor payments without payroll is a win for those clients since the price point is just $4.00 per month per contractor without any monthly subscription fee to pay. As these clients grow into payroll, they can opt into that additional subscription when they need it.
To add Contractor Payments to a new QuickBooks Online subscription, click the box during setup. You can see the cost for contractor payments does not include the monthly subscription like payroll.
To add a new Contractor Payments client:
1) Log into QBOA
2) Click Clients from the left-hand menu
3) Click Add client
4) Complete the new client form
5) Select the appropriate options for the QBO and Payroll subscription.
- Note: Contractor Payments requires a QBO subscription
6) Review the monthly charges and cost per employee for the new subscription
- Note: To add a wholesale client, the company payment method must be added if not on file
7) Click Add next to Payment Method if a payment method is not on file
8) Click Save
9) Review add client confirmation pop-up.
To learn how to add contractor payments to existing subscriptions, you can follow this link to learn more about setup.
Be aware that this new Contractor Payments add-on is just now rolling-out to accountants, while it may not be available to every QBO-Accountant user at this time, it should be fully live very soon.