Canadian Payroll Services
Full-cycle Canadian payroll — source deduction remittances, T4 and T4A filings, ROEs, and provincial workers’ compensation — for employers with 1–50+ employees.
Canadian payroll is more compliance than calculation
Most Canadian employers underestimate payroll. The actual paycheque calculation is the easy part. The compliance load is the hard part: monthly or quarterly source deduction remittances to CRA, year-end T4 and T4A preparation and filing, T5018 contract payment reporting for construction, Records of Employment (ROEs) issued accurately and on time when employees leave, provincial workers’ compensation board reporting (WCB Alberta, WorkSafeBC, WSIB Ontario, CNESST Quebec, NB WorkSafeNB, etc.), provincial payroll taxes (Ontario EHT, BC EHT, Manitoba HE Levy, Quebec contributions to Revenu Québec), and pension and benefit administration. Get any of it wrong and CRA penalties start fast.
BOMCAS Canada operates full payroll for Canadian employers — typically from 1 to 50 employees, including multi-province payrolls. We can run payroll on QuickBooks Online Payroll, Wagepoint, Payment Evolution, ADP, Ceridian, or other Canadian payroll platforms.
Who we serve
- Small businesses with 1–50 employees
- Restaurants, contractors, and retail with high turnover
- Professional corporations paying owner-managers
- Businesses that switched payroll providers and need clean continuity
- Trucking companies with cross-province driver payroll
- Construction businesses with mixed employee and subcontractor (T5018) reporting
- Nonprofits and charities
What we deliver
- Full-cycle payroll processing on whatever frequency you run (weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly)
- Net pay calculation including all federal and provincial deductions
- Direct deposit to employees (where supported by your payroll platform)
- Pay statement generation and secure distribution
- CRA source deduction remittance (CPP, EI, federal income tax, provincial income tax)
- CPP enhanced contribution tracking (CPP2)
- EI premium calculation including employer reduction where qualified
- Year-end T4 and T4A slip preparation and CRA filing
- T5018 information return for construction subcontractors
- Records of Employment (ROE) issued through ROE Web within the required deadlines
- Provincial WCB/WorkSafe registration and quarterly remittance
- Ontario EHT, BC EHT, Manitoba HE Levy, Quebec source deduction filings
- Bonus, vacation pay, retroactive adjustments, and severance calculations
- Pension plan and benefit deduction administration
The most expensive payroll mistakes
- Missing CRA remittance deadlines. CRA charges 3–10% penalties on late remittances, calculated daily. Repeated late remittances escalate.
- Misclassifying contractors as employees (or vice versa). CRA aggressively audits this. A reclassification can mean years of back source deductions plus penalties and interest, assessed against the employer.
- Missing ROE issuance. ROEs are due within five calendar days of the end of the pay period in which an interruption of earnings occurs. Late ROEs delay employee EI claims and create complaints.
- Misreporting taxable benefits. Group benefits, parking, gifts, company vehicles — each has specific CRA rules. Mis-handling them creates incorrect T4 reporting and personal-tax disputes.
- Wrong provincial overlay calculations. Ontario EHT, BC EHT, Manitoba HE Levy each have specific exemption thresholds and rates that change. Multi-province employers especially struggle with this.
What Canadian businesses commonly miss about this service
Across the hundreds of Canadian businesses we work with, the same handful of issues come up repeatedly. Many small business owners delay engaging professional accounting until a crisis: a CRA review letter, an unfiled GST/HST return demand, a denied bank loan because financial statements aren't ready, or a Notice of Reassessment that arrived weeks ago. By the time we are first contacted, the cost to fix the problem is often several times what proper ongoing accounting would have cost from the start. Proactive engagement is dramatically cheaper than reactive cleanup.
The Canadian tax landscape also changes constantly. Recent changes that affect most Canadian taxpayers include the 2023 anti-flipping rule (residential real estate sold within 365 days is automatically business income, not capital gain); the Underused Housing Tax (UHT-2900 annual filing requirement for many corporations, partnerships, and trusts holding residential property even when no tax is owing — with $5,000 to $10,000 per-property failure-to-file penalties); the Quebec QST joint registration changes since 2021; the post-2018 Tax on Split Income (TOSI) rules that effectively eliminated casual income splitting through family dividends; the post-2021 $200,000 stock option vesting limit on the 50% deduction for options granted by non-CCPCs; the CSRS 4200 Compilation Engagement standard replacing the older Notice to Reader engagement; and ongoing CRA increased scrutiny on pre-construction assignments, short-term rental businesses, and cash businesses.
How BOMCAS Canada delivers this service
Every engagement begins with a written, fixed-fee engagement letter signed before any work is performed. The engagement letter describes exactly what is in scope, what deliverables you will receive, when those deliverables are due, what your monthly or project fee is, and what (if anything) is outside scope. This eliminates the hourly-billing surprise that most accounting clients fear. The only time we use hourly billing is for genuinely unpredictable items such as CRA audit response or complex one-off projects — and even then we agree to a maximum cap before starting.
Once the engagement letter is signed, you e-sign the CRA authorization (RC59 for businesses or AUT-01 for individuals), and we onboard you to the encrypted client portal with multi-factor authentication. All document exchange flows through the portal — no emailing of sensitive financial documents. Meetings happen by video conference or phone at times that work for you, including outside normal business hours when needed.
Our Canadian tax compliance philosophy
BOMCAS Canada is structured around four operating principles:
- Tell the truth. If a tax position is aggressive, we say so. If a deduction will not survive a CRA review, we say so. If the engagement is going to cost more than originally quoted because the scope changed, we say so before doing the work.
- Bill what we said we would bill. No surprise invoices. No scope-creep billing. If something legitimately changes scope, we discuss it and re-quote before doing the additional work.
- Answer the phone. One-business-day response standard on client communications during normal business hours. No voicemail backlogs.
- Specialize. Canadian tax and accounting is too complex to be a generalist. We do not do US-only tax, UK tax, or any other foreign jurisdiction in isolation. We are Canadian. Our cross-border work is always anchored by deep Canadian compliance.
What ongoing engagement with BOMCAS Canada looks like
For most clients, the ongoing relationship is structured around predictable monthly deliverables. For an incorporated small business client, that typically includes: monthly cloud bookkeeping with full bank and credit card reconciliation; quarterly or annual GST/HST returns prepared and filed; monthly payroll for owner-managers and any employees, with CRA source deduction remittances; year-end Compilation Engagement (CSRS 4200) financial statements; T2 corporate income tax return; owner-manager T1 personal tax return (and spouse where applicable); annual salary-vs-dividend optimization with written recommendation; unlimited email and phone support during business hours; one quarterly check-in call to review numbers and discuss the business; and CRA correspondence handling for routine review letters.
For a personal tax client, the ongoing engagement includes: annual T1 preparation; any required Quebec TP-1 (for Quebec residents); CRA pre-assessment and post-assessment review response when CRA requests additional documentation; Notice of Assessment reconciliation; and proactive tax planning conversations during the year about RRSP, TFSA, and FHSA contributions, major life events (marriage, kids, retirement, real estate), and any planned business or investment changes.
Frequently asked questions about engaging BOMCAS Canada
How do I get started?
Are your fees fixed or hourly?
Can I switch from my current accountant?
How are documents exchanged?
Do you work with my industry?
Why Canadian businesses choose specialized accounting over generalist accounting
The Canadian tax and accounting landscape has become significantly more complex over the past decade. The 2018 TOSI rules, the 2021 changes to stock option taxation, the 2022 mandatory reporting changes for trusts, the 2023 anti-flipping rule, the Underused Housing Tax, the changes to the small business deduction phase-out for passive investment income, the new CSRS 4200 Compilation Engagement standard, the continued expansion of digital sales tax rules, and the ongoing post-COVID CRA focus on cash businesses and unreported income have all required accountants to specialize more deeply. A generalist firm trying to cover personal tax, corporate tax, US tax, real estate, trusts, cross-border, and every industry vertical inevitably falls behind on the depth of expertise that any one client needs.
BOMCAS Canada is structured deliberately to maintain depth: we are Canadian-only by design; we work in industries where we have genuine specialized experience; we maintain ongoing professional education in Canadian tax law; we use Canadian-experienced staff at every level; and we coordinate with specialized partners (US-licensed cross-border, legal counsel for corporate restructuring, audit-engagement licensed practitioners) where required rather than trying to handle everything in-house.
Talk to a Canadian accountant
Call 780-667-5250 or submit the contact form. We respond within one business day and provide a fixed written quote before any work begins.