Payroll systems · Intuit

QuickBooks Payroll

Intuit's own documentation covers employees, pay statements, deduction write, hours and webhooks through the API. Access: Partner program required.

Integration method grade A · field-level docs publicly readable · last verified 2026-09-26 · QuickBooks Workforce API — Manage payroll deductions

What the API lets you do

Question	Answer	Conf	What the documentation says
How do you get API access?	Partner program required	D	Compensation data needs a Silver, Gold or Platinum Intuit App Partner tier; all other Workforce resources are 'restricted to approved partners only'. No sandbox — testing needs production keys. Source
Can you read employees and pay rates?	Yes — approved partners	D	workerManagementEmployees returns name, hireDate, jobTitle, terminationDate and pay schedule; pay types come from payrollEmployeeCompensations. Source
Can you read pay statements?	Yes — payslips	D	payrollPayslips returns pay period, gross pay, deductions with employee and employer amounts, and compensations with current and YTD amounts. Source
Can you write a deduction?	Yes — GraphQL mutations	D	payrollCreateEmployeeMiscDeduction, payrollUpdateEmployeeMiscDeduction and payrollDeleteEmployeeMiscDeduction, plus employer policy mutations (scope qb.payroll.benefits). Source
Can you write a direct deposit account?	Unverified	U	No bank or direct-deposit scope or resource appears in the Workforce docs.
Can you read W-2s?	Unverified	U	No W-2 or tax-document resource or scope is published.
Can you read hours worked?	Yes — TimeActivity	D	TimeActivity in the Accounting API supports query, create, update and delete of time worked, linkable to a pay type. Source
Does it push change events?	Yes — payslips, employees	D	Webhooks for Payslip and PayrollEmployee entities, one notification per created payslip; the endpoint must return 200 within 3 seconds. Source
How does an integration authenticate?	OAuth 2.0	D	Intuit OAuth 2.0 with user consent; bearer tokens to qb.api.intuit.com/graphql. Source

Deduction write, in detail

For benefits, HSA/FSA and 401(k) integrations. 2 of 10 fields are unverified — no public source states the answer. Compare every system on the deduction write detail page.

Field	Value	Conf	Note — and what a correct answer needed
Deduction read	Yes — API	D	Employer deduction policies and per-employee employee and employer contributions are readable.
Deduction write	API (GraphQL)	D	Create, update and delete employee deduction mutations reference an existing deduction policy; restricted to approved partners.
Pre-tax vs post-tax at write	Inherited from code	D	Taxability is carried by the policy's statutoryType and category (e.g. 'Pretax HSA'); the employee mutation has no separate pre-tax flag.
Amount vs percent	Both — FIXED or PERCENT	D	amount { type, value } with FIXED or PERCENT, and an optional cap with a frequency such as BY_CALENDAR_YEAR.
Effective dating	Unverified	U	The documented deduction inputs show no start or end date. A correct answer needed the full GraphQL input types.
Retro adjustment	Unverified	U	No public statement on retroactive deduction adjustment.
Employer contribution	First-class object	D	employerContribution sits beside the employee contribution and appears on the payslip.
Code taxonomy shape	Hybrid	D	Employer-named deduction policies, each tied to an Intuit statutoryType code.
Auth model	OAuth 2.0	D	Bearer token with the qb.payroll.benefits scope; sensitive scopes need an extra legal agreement and manual onboarding.
Data freshness	Webhook on payslip	D	Payslip and PayrollEmployee webhooks fire on change; no stated latency for deduction records.

D vendor-documented · U unverified · — not offered. See every payroll system side by side in the Payroll API Capability Matrix.