QuickBooks On-Demand Pay by Clair: Eligibility, Fees, and How to Turn It Off
QuickBooks Payroll users can offer earned wage advances through Clair. Here is who qualifies, what employees pay, and how to disable the feature.
QuickBooks Payroll subscribers in the United States have been reaching out to understand On-Demand Pay, an earned wage access feature that QuickBooks offers through its partnership with the financial technology company Clair. The feature is included with a QuickBooks Payroll subscription at no additional cost to the employer, but questions about eligibility, employee fees, and how to switch it off come up regularly.
What On-Demand Pay Is
On-Demand Pay is an earned wage access benefit. It allows qualified employees to request an advance on wages they have already earned, based on their time and attendance data, without disrupting the employer’s normal payroll cycle. The employer does not fund the advance; the service is positioned as an alternative to employer-funded pay advances and to high-cost borrowing options such as payday loans, giving employees a way to cover unexpected expenses between paydays.
The feature is optional from the employee’s perspective. Not everyone on the team will need or use it, but it is available to those who do.
Who Can Offer It
To be eligible to offer On-Demand Pay, an employer needs an active QuickBooks Payroll subscription in the United States, and payroll must have been run at least once in the previous 30 days. At least one employee must be paid through Direct Deposit. Employees may also need to meet additional criteria on their end, including access to QuickBooks Workforce, the self-service portal where they view pay stubs and manage their details.
What Employees Pay
The advance itself is not a loan from the employer, and the pricing structure reflects that. A standard advance lands in the employee’s bank account within one to three business days at no cost. Employees who want the money immediately can choose an instant transfer for a flat fee of $4.99. That fee is the employee’s decision; the free option remains available to anyone willing to wait a couple of business days.
How Employees Get Access
Employees interact with On-Demand Pay through QuickBooks Workforce. To get an employee set up, the employer signs in to their QuickBooks account, goes to Payroll, and selects Employees. From the All apps menu, they choose Payroll and then Employees. Selecting an individual employee brings up the option to invite them to QuickBooks Workforce. Once the employee accepts the invitation and meets the eligibility criteria, they can request advances against earned wages from within the Workforce experience.
How to Turn It Off
Not every employer wants to offer the benefit, and some users have asked how to disable it after finding it enabled in their settings. The opt-out path runs through payroll settings rather than the employee list. Sign in to the QuickBooks account, go to Payroll Settings, and select Shared Data. There, uncheck the option to provide On-Demand Pay to employees, delivered straight to their existing debit card account through Clair. Saving that change removes the offering from the employee side.
Availability Limits
The feature is not available everywhere. Users in several states cannot offer it, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, and South Dakota. Employers in those states who do not see the option, or who find it greyed out, are not missing a setting; the service simply is not offered there under current state rules. This is one of the more common points of confusion, since the feature otherwise appears as a standard checkbox in payroll settings.
Why Employers Are Looking at It
The appeal, according to the setup material QuickBooks provides for the feature, is retention and recruitment. On-Demand Pay is described as a benefit typically offered at large corporations, and smaller payroll subscribers can now extend something similar without funding advances themselves or administering a repayment process. Because repayment is handled through the normal payroll deduction tied to earned wages, the employer’s payroll workflow is not disrupted, and the employer is not put in the position of deciding who deserves an advance.
For subscribers who decide the benefit is not a fit, the Shared Data toggle makes it a reversible decision rather than a permanent commitment. And for those in the excluded states, the question of whether the offering expands to additional jurisdictions remains open; there is no setting that overrides the state-level restriction.
Employers weighing the feature should consider whether their workforce uses Direct Deposit and QuickBooks Workforce, since both are prerequisites on the employee side. Without Direct Deposit, the eligibility requirements are not met, and the On-Demand Pay option will not function even if it appears in settings.