Payroll services in Richmond Hill

Payroll covers the source deductions for CPP, EI premiums and income tax, the remittances to the CRA, the year-end T4 and T4A slips, and access through My Business Account.

Updated October 2026.

Who we run payroll for in Richmond Hill

The City of Richmond Hill identifies professional, scientific and technical services, health, finance and insurance, and information and culture as its key sectors, and it profiles a range of software, electronics, robotics, advanced-manufacturing and life-sciences employers. Most local businesses are small. So the payrolls we see are usually modest in headcount but varied in shape: a clinic with salaried and hourly staff, an engineering consultancy paying salaried professionals and a few contractors, a software company with developers whose wages also feed an SR&ED claim, a small manufacturer with shift workers, and owner-managers who pay themselves a salary through the company.

Each of those has its own payroll questions. Health practices often mix employees and independent practitioners, which raises the employee-or-contractor question. Technical companies need payroll records that tie salaries to projects. Manufacturers and trades need overtime, vacation pay and public holiday pay calculated under Ontario rules. And every owner-manager needs salary planned against dividends, which is a personal tax decision as much as a payroll one.

The federal deductions underneath everything

The core obligations are the same everywhere in Canada. Income tax, CPP and EI are withheld from each pay and, with the employer’s share of CPP and EI, remitted to the CRA. The remittance schedule is assigned from your average monthly withholding, so a growing employer can move from monthly to more frequent remittances without much warning. Late remittances attract penalties even when the amount is small, which is why the dates are logged for each payroll account. The PD7A remittance voucher and the account’s balance in My Business Account are reconciled to the payroll register every period, and the T4 slips and summary are filed by the last day of February. Payroll remittances and the RP account explains the schedule.

Employer health tax: the rate is chosen before the exemption

Ontario’s employer health tax is graduated rather than flat, and the order of operations is where employers go wrong. You select your rate from the band table using total Ontario remuneration before any exemption is deducted. Only then do you subtract the exemption and apply the chosen rate to what remains. Deducting the exemption first and then finding your band puts you in a lower band than you belong in and understates the tax.

The bands run from 0.98% on Ontario payroll up to $200,000, through steps between $200,000.01 and $400,000, to 1.95% on payroll over $400,000. The exemption is $1,000,000 and is scheduled for inflation adjustment on 1 January 2029. No exemption is available where the employer or its associated group has more than $5,000,000 of annual Ontario payroll, and associated employers must file an allocation agreement to share the single exemption. The full table, with its source, is on the Ontario tax facts page.

Associated companies share one exemption

Owner-managed businesses in Richmond Hill often grow into more than one company: an operating company and a holding company, a practice and a management company, or a second business started by the same owners. Because the employer health tax exemption belongs to the associated group rather than to each corporation, two companies that each pay $700,000 of wages are not each under the exemption — together they are over it. The calculation has to be done at group level and then allocated, in that order. The associated corporations note covers the parallel rule for the small business deduction.

WSIB is a separate registration

Workplace coverage in Ontario runs through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, which is entirely separate from the Ministry of Finance and carries its own registration, classification and clearance obligations. It uses the same payroll figures as everything else but is reported to a different body on a different schedule, which is exactly the kind of split that gets missed when payroll is run informally. In construction, compulsory coverage reaches owners and executive officers too; see Richmond Hill trades accounting.

Ontario holiday and vacation pay

Ontario recognises nine public holidays. Public holiday pay is the regular wages and vacation pay earned in the four work weeks before the week containing the holiday, divided by twenty. A payroll policy written for another province will not produce the right amount, and staff paid hourly or on variable schedules are where the differences show. Vacation pay earned but not yet taken is a liability at year-end and is accrued in the books, so the year-end statements reflect it.

Employees, contractors and practitioners

Many Richmond Hill businesses pay people who invoice rather than receive a pay slip: developers on contract, consulting engineers, practitioners working in a clinic. Whether someone is an employee or a contractor depends on control, who owns the tools, whether they can subcontract and whether they carry a chance of profit or loss — not on what the agreement calls them. If the CRA reclassifies a long-term contractor, the employer owes the deductions it should have withheld. We review the arrangements when payroll is set up. The worker classification guide explains the tests.

What is covered

• Pay runs with Ontario tax tables applied to Ontario employees
• Income tax, CPP and EI withheld and remitted on your CRA schedule
• Employer health tax calculated at group level, with the band selected correctly
• Allocation of the exemption across associated employers where one applies
• WSIB registration support and payroll reporting
• Public holiday and vacation pay calculated under Ontario employment standards
• T4 and T4A slips and summaries filed by the last day of February

Remote, with no Richmond Hill office

EverStone works fully online. There is no office in Richmond Hill or elsewhere in York Region, and no plan for one — employers are served through video calls, secure document exchange and e-signature. Payroll suits that arrangement because none of the inputs or outputs are physical: hours and changes come in by email or upload, pay runs are approved online, and remittances go to the CRA electronically. The payroll hub collects the underlying guides and calculators.

The year-end this all feeds into is corporate tax in Richmond Hill.

Each company in a group remits on its own dates, so map all of them on a thirteen-week cash forecast.