What is payroll management?
Payroll management is everything between hours worked and money in an employee's account: calculating gross pay, deducting Canada Pension Plan contributions, Employment Insurance premiums and income tax, remitting those deductions with your share, and filing the slips and forms that follow each hire, departure and year-end.
The calculation is the easy part. What goes wrong is timing, such as a remittance a few days late, a Record of Employment that never got issued, or a seasonal worker paid on the wrong basis.
What does Abbotsford Bookkeeping include in payroll management?
- Pay runs on your schedule, with a written wage statement for every employee each payday
- Source deductions calculated and remitted to the Canada Revenue Agency by the due date
- Records of Employment issued when someone leaves or their hours stop
- T4 slips and the T4 summary prepared and filed for each calendar year
- Assessable payroll tracked for your WorkSafeBC reporting
- Payroll journal entries posted to the ledger, so wages in the books match wages paid
Which payroll software do you use?
Wagepoint for most clients, or QuickBooks Online Payroll when the ledger already lives in QuickBooks. Both handle direct deposit, wage statements, ROEs and T4s for Canadian employers. If you already run payroll in one of them, we take over your file instead of starting again.
What does an employer owe, and when?
A small employer's main payroll deadlines are monthly remittances, Records of Employment within days of a departure, and T4s once a year. Most penalties come from missing one of these dates, not from getting a calculation wrong.
| Obligation | Who it is owed to | Deadline |
|---|---|---|
| CPP, EI and income tax deducted from pay | Canada Revenue Agency | 15th of the following month for regular (monthly) remitters, which includes new employers |
| Record of Employment (electronic) | Service Canada | 5 calendar days after the end of the pay period in which earnings stop, for weekly, biweekly or semi-monthly pay |
| T4 slips and summary | CRA and each employee | Last day of February after the calendar year |
| Workers' compensation premiums | WorkSafeBC | Based on assessable payroll, as WorkSafeBC sets out for your account |
| Payroll records | Kept by you | Four years, at your main place of business in BC |
Monthly or four-weekly pay periods have a shorter ROE window in some cases, and larger employers remit more often. We set the schedule from your own account, not from a general table.
What is not included in payroll management?
Human resources advice, benefits plan design, employment disputes, and immigration paperwork such as Labour Market Impact Assessments. We work alongside the people who handle those, and we keep the payroll side of each decision accurate.
What does payroll management cost in Abbotsford?
Payroll is part of our Considered tier, $800 to $1,200 a month CAD, which covers monthly bookkeeping, pay runs, remittances and year-end slips for a typical owner-operated business. Larger crews, several companies or multiple pay groups usually sit in Bespoke at $1,250 to $2,000. Pay frequency, headcount through the peak season, and the number of pay groups are what move the price.
How should Abbotsford farms and fleets run payroll through peak season?
With the rules for each kind of worker settled before the first hire, because peak season is the worst time to work them out. Under BC's Employment Standards, the hours-of-work, overtime and statutory holiday provisions do not apply to farm workers. They are still owed minimum wage when paid hourly, and vacation pay, and employers must not require or allow excessive hours. Hand harvesters of blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and several other crops can be paid by the piece at minimum rates set by regulation, which already include 4% vacation pay and are adjusted every December 31, so we check the current table before each season.
The rest of the season needs the same care:
- Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program crews. The Canada Revenue Agency's guidance is to deduct income tax, CPP and EI as for Canadian residents. A treaty waiver can remove the income tax withholding, but CPP and EI deductions continue.
- Short stints. For other farm workers, employment can fall outside CPP or EI when it is very short or paid very little in the year. The tests are specific, so we apply them worker by worker rather than by habit.
- Labour contractors. Farm labour contractors in BC must be licensed, and producers may only use licensed contractors. We keep a copy of the licence with the payables.
- Drivers and fleets. Hourly drivers, salaried dispatchers and owner-operators on contract are paid and recorded differently. We keep each group in its own pay group, so the busy months stay readable.
A good fit if
- You have anywhere from one employee to a large seasonal crew
- Your headcount rises and falls with the season
- You want remittances, ROEs and T4s handled without reminders
Probably not the right fit if
- You need a full HR or benefits administrator
- You want payroll only, with no bookkeeping alongside it
- You need immigration or LMIA applications prepared