Bookkeeping for Edmonton businesses

The books feed every filing that follows: the T2 or T2125, the GST/HST return and its input tax credits, the CCA schedule and the CRA instalments.

Labour has to reach the job it was spent on

A crew-based Edmonton business — industrial services, fabrication, installation, maintenance — usually knows what it billed a job but not what it cost, because payroll sits in one wages account. Job costing fixes that: hours coded to jobs, burdened with employer contributions, so each job carries its own labour cost. Without it, a losing contract stays hidden until the annual result disappoints.

The burdened cost is higher than the wage

The timesheet rate is not what an hour costs. Employer CPP and EI contributions, workers’ compensation premiums, vacation pay and benefits sit on top. Quoting from the bare wage systematically underprices, and the gap is not small. The bookkeeping should post employer contributions to the same job as the wage, not a general payroll expense, so the ledger shows the true cost and the next Edmonton quote starts from it.

Remittances arrive on their own schedule

Source deductions are held for the CRA and remitted on a schedule set by your remitter type, sometimes more often than monthly for a larger payroll. Late remittance is a penalty in itself, and the amount owed is a liability until paid. A ledger posting only the net bank withdrawal hides it, which is how businesses fall behind. Payroll remittances covers remitter types and timing.

Vacation pay is earned before it is taken

Vacation pay accrues as an employee works, whether paid each period or banked. If banked and never accrued, the balance sheet omits a real obligation, and the month someone takes three weeks off looks like an unrelated expense spike. Accruing it as earned puts the cost in the right period and keeps the liability visible. Vacation pay rules covers the entitlement side.

The year-end reconciliation you cannot fake

At year end the T4 summary must agree with the ledger’s payroll accounts and the amounts remitted. Pay runs posted in full make that a check; net withdrawals make it a reconstruction, with discrepancies explained to the CRA, which reliably follows them up. The payroll year-end checklist sets out the sequence.

One sales tax, and what that leaves

Alberta has no provincial sales tax or employer health tax, so the ledger carries a single 5% GST account and an Edmonton employer’s monthly obligations are short: federal source deductions, workers’ compensation and GST. Fewer obligations get less attention, which is why remittance timing and the workers’ compensation account are where well-kept Alberta files most often fall behind.

What the missing PST does not remove is the second corporate return. An Alberta corporation files the AT1 with Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration alongside the federal T2, and both are prepared from the same year-end books, so the ledger has to support two filings that must agree. Reconciling the GST account every month also makes the annual GST return a transcription rather than a reconstruction.

Remote, from a single office

EverStone is a one-CPA firm with no Edmonton office or local staff. Timesheets, payroll registers and remittance confirmations arrive electronically and are posted monthly. The CPA posting the pay runs also reconciles the T4 summary and prepares the corporate returns, so payroll figures are settled once.

The moment there are employees, payroll in Edmonton becomes the recurring obligation.

Keeping the books accurately and knowing what they mean are different jobs, and it is worth being deliberate about the difference between recording and reviewing.

Bookkeeping elsewhere in Alberta

The same service, online and at the same published fees, for owners in St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray.