Have you dreamed of walking on a sandy beach while your payroll was being done for you back home? Well the new Agentic-AI Payroll Agent coming soon to a QuickBooks Online near you, may help you fulfill that dream.
The “new” QuickBooks Online, which began rolling out in July, is well underway this month and is expected to be in full swing by the end of next month*. It has some enhancements for those who process payroll with QBO Payroll but don’t use either Auto Payroll or QuickBooks Time.
As part of the rollout, these QBO users will be able to utilize Agentic-AI based Payroll Agents to manage payroll tasks proactively by collecting data and running payroll accurately and automatically. The Payroll Agent will request confirmation or approval from the designated Payroll Manager as necessary, ensuring you remain confident that your payroll is always processed correctly.
To access the Agentic Payroll Agent, head over to the Payroll Overview or Business feed.
Check out “See how it works” for an explanation of what the new AI Agent can do for you and your payroll.
The Agentic Payroll Agent examines your payroll structure to find data that conforms to the Agent’s data collection methods. It identifies those employees who are missing the necessary information for data collection.
The Agentic Payroll Agent examines your payroll structure to find data that conforms to the Agent’s data collection methods. It identifies those employees who are missing the necessary information for data collection.
The Agent explains how they will go about the process of assisting you with payroll, starting with your ‘hourly employees.’
But you get to decide how the Agent interacts with your employees, for example, when it should reach out to them, and what it should inquire about (regular hours, overtime, tips), and the method it should use. Currently, only ‘SMS Text messaging’ is available, but very soon the Agent will be able to interact with your employees via the QuickBooks Workforce Mobile App.
Based on your instructions, the Agent will summarize the steps it will take on your behalf when requesting employee payroll information. You can even “Preview” an example of the SMS Text Message the Agent will use in contacting your employees.
Once you have worked with the Agent to set up the contact procedures, it will proceed with its task for each future payroll. You can always make adjustments if needed in the future.
However, hourly personnel are not your only employees; most businesses have salaried employees on their payroll. The following step in the process is to configure how the Agent should reach out to your salaried personnel.
Again, the Agent reviews the various employee records to identify data that is pertinent to performing the task. It may identify salaried personnel who do not routinely require contact because their salary is their only recurring form of compensation; however, even some salaried personnel may be subject to overtime or tips and need to report such information before payroll can be correctly computed.
In this example, the Agent also found that several salaried employees were missing information, such as their telephone numbers, which are necessary to send text messages to them.
Once all the details of the ‘how’ of this new Agentic AI-based payroll data collection will work, the Payroll Agent will ask you to confirm and authorize it to communicate with your employees.
By the way, this process also determines how you, as the Payroll Manager, prefer to be contacted by the Agent when the payroll data is collected and ready for your review and approval.
Now, your new Agentic Payroll Agent undertakes the tasks you have prescribed and contacts your employees according to the settings you have configured. The first task of the Agent is to contact each employee to let them know that it (the Agent) will be reaching out to them to help ensure they are paid correctly. It lets them know if they have any questions to contact you as the Payroll Manager. It is probably a wise idea to let your employees know that you are transitioning to a new method of collecting worked hours, overtime, and tips, so they are not totally confused when the automated Agent reaches out to them.
When it’s time for the next payroll, the Agent begins the process of contacting your personnel to obtain their regular, overtime, and tip information.
Once all the payroll information has been collected and the payroll is ready to run, the Agent will send you, as the Payroll Manager, a text message with the specifics.
You can log in to QuickBooks, review the Audit log of what the Agentic Agent has posted, and verify the payroll if you like. Alternatively, you can instruct the Agent to proceed directly from your mobile device.
The choice is yours, but with letting your new Agentic-AI Payroll Agent do the work, your role of Payroll Manager will soon become one of “managing the payroll, rather than letting the payroll manage you.” And, that may very well let you take those long walks on the beach while payroll does itself.
Footnotes and Disclosures:
* - Content is based on Intuit source materials, Intuit Help content and certain pre-release QuickBooks (Online) Advanced Beta version information gathering. Your version(s) may appear different at the time of your actual product implementation, including differences based on the QuickBooks SKU you are subscribed to. Not all QuickBooks SKUs contain all of the features outlined herein.
Feature content, including graphics, was adapted from Intuit media source content and other QuickBooks resources. Content adapted by Insightful Accountant from Intuit sources is furnished for educational purposes only.
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