Email already in Use Error - Changing Employees to Contractors

It happens when an email is tied to an existing Intuit account; even if that person was terminated as an employee, the Intuit identity layer still recognizes that email as "in use." Even though you're changing things on the surface, the database refuses to let that original email be reused for anyone or anything else. The only way forward is to send a new invite to a different email address.

For the third employee, they likely never set up any of those things, so their email was cleared and was successfully sent.

Please use the Reply button below if you have any follow-up questions regarding this or any other concern. 

Unfortunately Gerald, that is not correct.

I setup 2 test accounts in my QB prior to attempting this change. Both of these accounts were issued an email address using the same naming convention, same email domain, and had hours input into my company to ensure we had some records before I then used the QB guides I found online to then terminate them and then convert them to contractors. Both of these test accounts were able to be converted to contractors using the same email addresses as originally provided when set up as employees. I manually logged into both accounts to access Tsheets and submitted hours under them in both cases, both before and after their employee/contractor conversion.

Additionally, all 3 of these individuals whom I am attempting this conversion have been setup and operating for some time. I have individually vetted with each account that they were using the provided email addresses to access their intuit account and then tsheets, before making the change. I know all 3 were associated with an intuit user. Point being, that 3rd individual absolutely had the same operational setup going as the other 2 employees that I am now unable to convert.

Unless QB has radically changed the ability for email addresses to be recycled(within the last year or so), the answer provided seems to fly in the face of several posts I have read from other users seeking to make this change.

I appreciate your effort in running that test. The fact that those test accounts were fully set up and switched over perfectly using the same method proves your point. This issue could be due to how those other two former employees were configured in your QuickBooks account.

For instance, if those two are added to your main QuickBooks user list to track time, view reports, or modify the books, the program might have locked their emails to your company’s internal user list. It’s possible that the employee who transitioned smoothly only exists on your payroll.

If this is the case, those two individuals will need to use different email addresses for their QuickBooks Workforce accounts. It is advisable to use a work email for QuickBooks Online (QBO) and a personal email for Workforce.

Please comment below if you have further questions.