I appreciate you for performing the workarounds to activate your payroll direct deposit in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT), @HWSC. I'm here to provide updates on why you get an error message while activating the feature.

Currently, we have an ongoing investigation about activating direct deposit in QBDT. Rest assured that our engineers are actively working to resolve this as soon as possible. This way, you can process payroll and pay your employees through direct deposit and get back to business in no time.

In line with this, I'd recommend contacting our Customer Care team. They can add your account to the list of affected users. This ensures you're in the loop about the investigation's status and its fix. You can provide the INV-53991 to our representative as your reference. You'll first have to check out our support hours to ensure we can assist you on time. Here's how:

1. Open QuickBooks.
2. Go to the Help menu.
3. Select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
4. Click Contact Us.
5. Enter your concern, then select Continue.
6. Choose a way to connect with us either to Start a messaging or Get a callback.

Once resolved, you can refer to these articles below to activate direct deposit and pay your employees through it:

• Set up your company payroll for direct deposit

• Set up direct deposit for employees

Let me know how it goes in the comments below. I'm just around to help if you have other payroll and direct deposit concerns in QBDT. Take care always.