Payroll services in White Rock

Payroll is scoped into a fixed monthly fee agreed in writing. Monthly bookkeeping starts from $300 a month, and a typical trades bundle of bookkeeping, payroll and the year-end T2 usually runs $450–$650 a month. The published fees show where each service starts.

Hiring for the summer, and letting the season go

Restaurants on Marine Drive, shops uptown and landscaping and painting crews across South Surrey all add people when the weather turns. Each new hire needs a TD1, a social insurance number on file and a start date before the first pay run. Each departure in the fall needs a final cheque within 48 hours, vacation pay owing, and a Record of Employment. An ROE issued late, or coded with the wrong reason, follows the former employee into their EI claim. The Record of Employment guide explains the timing.

Students home for the summer, retirees picking up part-time hours and people who work two seasonal jobs at once are all common on the peninsula. Each brings a different TD1, and some will claim the basic personal amount with two employers at once. We flag that on the new-hire form rather than leave the employee to find a balance owing at tax time.

Tips on the patio, and which ones are payroll

Tips are not all treated alike. Tips a customer hands directly to a server are the server’s own income. Tips that the employer collects and distributes, including most card tips pooled through the till, are controlled tips. Controlled tips go through payroll with income tax withheld, and they are generally pensionable and insurable. Getting that split wrong is a common reason a restaurant’s T4s and its remittances disagree. Tip reporting on payroll sets out the distinction, and restaurant accounting in White Rock covers the rest of the file.

Statutory holidays fall in the busy months

Canada Day and BC Day land in the middle of the beach season, exactly when the schedule is fullest. BC Employment Standards require statutory holiday pay for eligible employees, and premium pay for those who work the day. Vacation pay is 4% of earnings, rising to 6% after five years with the same employer. Seasonal staff often take theirs as a percentage on each cheque, which has to be shown on the pay stub. Our BC stat holiday pay calculator works through eligibility and the average-day formula.

WorkSafeBC and the employer health tax

Every BC employer registers with WorkSafeBC and pays premiums on assessable payroll at its classification rate. A trades company also asks its subcontractors for clearance letters before paying them, so it does not inherit their unpaid premiums. The WorkSafeBC registration guide covers the steps. The BC employer health tax only begins once annual BC remuneration passes $1,000,000, and associated employers share that exemption. Most peninsula employers sit below it, but a group of related companies can cross it together. The rates are on the BC tax facts page.

Paying the owner, and the owner’s family

An incorporated owner chooses between salary and dividends, and the choice changes the payroll file. Salary means CPP contributions, a T4 and RRSP room. Dividends mean a T5 and no source deductions at all. A spouse or adult child on payroll needs real work at a reasonable rate, documented the same way as any other employee. We recalculate the mix each year with the salary versus dividends calculator, and paying your spouse a salary explains the rules.

Employee or contractor, decided before the first cheque

Painters, cleaners, bookkeeping help and marketing support are often paid as contractors on the peninsula. The CRA looks at control, tools, the chance of profit and how integrated the work is, not at what the agreement calls the person. A worker reclassified as an employee brings unremitted CPP and EI premiums with them, plus penalties. Settling the question at onboarding costs nothing. Employee or contractor walks through the factors.

Remittances through the year, slips in February

Source deductions are remitted on the schedule the CRA assigns to your payroll account, and the employer’s share of CPP and EI premiums goes with them. A small employer usually remits monthly, for the pays of the month before. A seasonal business has a payroll that swells in summer and nearly disappears in winter, so the remittance can jump from one month to the next. Late or short remittances attract penalties even when the tax is eventually paid.

After December, every employee’s earnings and deductions go onto a T4, filed with a summary by the last day of February. Students who worked one summer still get one. If the owner took dividends instead, a T5 goes out on the same deadline. We reconcile the year’s remittances to the slips before anything is filed, so the CRA’s PIER review finds nothing to chase.

Remote payroll from Abbotsford

The practice is based in Abbotsford, up Highway 1 in the Fraser Valley, and White Rock payroll runs entirely remotely. There is no White Rock office. Hours come in by spreadsheet or from your scheduling software, deposits go out on your pay date, and remittances follow the schedule the CRA assigned. The same CPA prepares the T4s in February and the monthly books they tie to.

When an employee leaves mid-season, final pay and termination sets out what is owed and when.