Hi drroa,

Thanks for your interest in payroll. You'll need to have a payroll subscription to be able to use the Payroll service in QuickBooks Desktop. You may contact our QuickBooks Desktop Payroll team to buy one. They will also guide you on how to activate it.

Here's an article for your reference: Activate QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.

If you have other questions in mind, feel free to go back to this thread.