Contractor accountant in Montreal

Contractors in the Quebec City region will find the same work on contractor accounting in Quebec City; payroll for a crew is covered on payroll in Montreal.

The RBQ licence and CCQ-regulated work

A contractor in Quebec needs a licence from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec to carry out construction work, and general contractors check a subcontractor’s licence before they hire. Keeping the corporation’s information current with the RBQ is part of staying able to bid, so a change of shareholders, address or structure is something the accountant should hear about before it happens, not after.

Much of the work on the island and across Laval and the South Shore is also regulated by the Commission de la construction du Québec. CCQ rules govern the labour side of that work: who can do it, and how their hours and pay are reported. For the books, it means payroll on regulated jobs follows CCQ requirements on top of the ordinary QPP, QPIP and source deductions, and job costing has to separate regulated from non-regulated work where a company does both. Mixing them in one wage account is the usual reason labour cost per job cannot be trusted.

Progress billing and when GST and QST become payable

Construction contracts are billed in stages, and the sales tax follows the billing rather than the completion of the job. On an ordinary progress invoice, GST and QST generally become payable on the earlier of the invoice date and the date the payment is received. That means tax on a large draw is owed in the filing period it was billed, even if the client pays late. A Montreal contractor on a monthly or quarterly return can owe tax on money it has not yet collected.

Holdbacks are the exception. The portion of a progress payment that the client holds back under the contract generally does not carry tax until it is paid or falls due for payment, which is often months after the invoice. Invoices that show the holdback separately, and books that track it separately, are what allow the tax on it to be reported in the right period. Holdback accounting works through an example.

Holdbacks on both sides of the ledger

A holdback is earned revenue that is not yet collectible, and it belongs in receivables from the period the work was done. The mirror image sits on the payable side: holdbacks the company retains from its own subcontractors are costs already incurred. Both belong in the period the work happened. Deferring either to the release date misstates the margin on the job that produced it, and on a multi-year project it moves profit between tax years for no good reason. A holdback schedule by project, reviewed at year-end, is what keeps the job-level numbers honest.

T5018 slips and the subcontractor question

A business whose main activity is construction reports payments to subcontractors for construction services on T5018 slips, due six months after the end of the reporting period. The T5018 guide sets out who is included. Gathering names, addresses and business numbers when a sub is first hired is far easier than chasing them a year later.

Behind the slip sits the harder question: is this person a subcontractor or an employee? Control over the work, ownership of tools, the ability to subcontract and the chance of profit or loss decide it, and the consequences of a wrong answer — unremitted QPP, QPIP, EI and income tax — land on the payer. Documenting the position for regular subs is cheap insurance. The T5018 tracker helps keep the details through the year.

What EverStone handles for you

One CPA, one fixed fee agreed up front:

• T2 and CO-17 corporate returns and year-end financial statements
• Progress billing, holdbacks and work in progress reviewed at the cut-off
• GST and QST on progress draws and holdback releases, filed with Revenu Québec
• T5018 subcontractor information returns
• Subcontractor-versus-employee positions documented defensibly
• Job costing that separates CCQ-regulated labour
• Equipment and vehicle CCA schedules

Fixed fees, fully online

EverStone is an Abbotsford CPA firm and Montreal is three hours ahead, so a question sent at the end of your day on site is usually answered before the next one starts. Everything runs by video, phone and secure upload link, which fits a business run from a truck. A typical trades-corporation bundle of bookkeeping, payroll and the year-end usually runs $450 to $650 a month. The fee is fixed and agreed before work starts. See what it costs.

Remote contractor accounting from Abbotsford

Contractor accounting for Montreal clients is delivered remotely from 32615 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford. There is no Montreal office and no local team. Meetings are virtual, documents are signed electronically, and you deal with the CPA directly rather than an intake desk. EverStone works in English. Subcontractor payments, holdbacks and equipment costs are tracked as they happen rather than reconstructed at year end.