Setting up a Canadian employer and the payroll settings

A sub-company is only calculated by Canadian payroll if it has a “Canadian employer” record. This record holds everything the Canadian agencies know about the employer: CRA and Revenu Québec numbers, remittance frequencies, workers’ compensation rates and the contact person for returns. This article explains how to create and maintain the record, then covers the module’s three other settings: the pay statement template, accounting and the SFTP deposit. It is aimed at administrators and payroll managers.

Before you start #

• The Canadian payroll module must be installed — see Getting started with Canadian payroll.
• To read the records, you need the Canadian employers right at the Access level; to create or edit them or remove a sub-company from payroll, at the Execute level. Without Execute, the page is read-only: values are shown as text, with no fields or buttons.
• The pay statement template falls under the Canadian pay statement right; the chart of accounts, export formats and SFTP deposit under Canadian payroll accounting. For each: Access to read, Execute to edit.
• The Administrator and Payroll Manager roles hold these rights at the Execute level.

Reading the list of employers #

Open Canadian payroll › Canadian employers, or Settings › Canadian payroll › Canadian employers. The page lists the Payroll scopes of your workspace: the company and each sub-company. Each one is marked Calculated by Illizeo or Not calculated by Illizeo; a scope without a record shows No Canadian employer record.

Only contracts attached to an office in Canada enter a Canadian employer’s payroll.

Creating a Canadian employer record #

1. In the list, click the sub-company. Its page opens with the message “This scope has no Canadian employer record: it is not calculated by Illizeo.”
2. Fill in the Identification section: Legal name (required, as the T4 slip and the record of employment name it), Payroll program account number (CRA) (required, 9 digits, RP, 4 digits), Province of the head office, and the head office address (Head office address, Address line 2, City, Postal code), which goes to the T4 summary.
3. Fill in the Remittances section (see below).
4. Enter the rates in the Workers’ compensation section.
5. Choose the Accounting voucher level of detail.
6. Fill in the Contact person: First name, Last name, Phone and E-mail are required, Extension is optional. This is the person the CRA and Service Canada call about the T4 and the record of employment.
7. Click Have Illizeo calculate it. The message “Canadian employer saved.” confirms it. The sub-company switches to Calculated by Illizeo.

From then on, the same button reads Save; it stays greyed out until you change something.

Remittances #

• Remittances to the CRA: the frequency the CRA assigned to you — Annual, Quarterly, Monthly (regular remitter), Twice a month (accelerated, threshold 1) or Up to four times a month (accelerated, threshold 2).
• Revenu Québec identification number and Remittances to Revenu Québec: only if employees work in Quebec. The frequency is required with the number.
• HSF sector: Primary or manufacturing, Public sector or Other sector; it sets the Health Services Fund contribution rate.
• Pension plan registration number (T4, box 50): 7 digits, the number of the RPP or DPSP employees contribute to.

When the province of the head office is Quebec, or a Revenu Québec number is entered, a note reminds you that the RL-1 is prepared as a working document and filed outside Illizeo until Revenu Québec authorizes the software.

Quebec and health tax annual amounts #

• Total payroll (HSF): the HSF rate depends on the employer’s total payroll, worldwide and including associated employers. Click Add a year and enter the Year and the Total payroll ($). Without it, the pay of an employee in Quebec cannot be calculated.
• Training expenditures (WSDRF): above $2M of payroll, the employer contributes 1% to the WSDRF, less its eligible training expenditures of the year. Enter them by year; the RLZ-1.S summary deducts them.
• Health taxes: share of the exemption (associated employers): in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador, associated employers share the health tax exemption. Click Add a share and enter the province, the year and the Share of the exemption ($) the group agreement assigns to you. Without an entry, the full exemption applies.

Workers’ compensation #

Click Add a province, then enter the Province, the Rate (%) and the Maximum ($) insurable earnings your board (CNESST, WSIB, WorkSafeBC…) notified to you. Illizeo never makes up a rate.

The pay calendar #

At the top of the page, the Pay calendar card shows, read-only, the Group, Frequency, Pays per year, End of a reference period and Payment delay. They come from the Reference periods group the sub-company follows, and are changed there (Settings › Payroll › Reference periods).

If the sub-company is not attached to any reference period, the card shows “Attach this scope to a reference period: without it, its pays cannot be scheduled.” Do so before calculating a pay.

Next to the sub-company name, the Payroll engines link leads to the setting that assigns the payroll that calculates each scope.

Removing a sub-company from payroll #

1. On the sub-company page, click Remove from payroll.
2. The Remove from payroll dialog warns: “The Canadian employer record is deleted: this scope will no longer be calculated by Illizeo.”
3. Click Remove. The message “The scope is no longer calculated by Illizeo.” confirms it.

The pay statement template #

Open Settings › Canadian payroll › Pay statement. There you design each employer’s pay statement: texts, formatting, and where the blocks go (header, earnings, deductions and net pay, employer contributions, balances…). Amounts always come from the closed pay.

• The pay statement prints on US Letter paper (8.5 × 11 in), in French or English depending on the employee’s language — always in French in Quebec.
• Until you save anything, the Illizeo template applies; it carries the details required by employment standards (employer, employee, period and pay date, earnings, deductions and net pay). Saving it makes it your template.
• An employer can have its own template; Go back to the inherited template deletes it, and its next pay statements follow the company’s template, or Illizeo’s.
• A template change applies to pay statements generated afterwards: each pay statement keeps the template version that produced it. The PDF preview button shows the result before saving.

Payroll accounting #

Open Settings › Canadian payroll › Accounting. The page has two parts.

• Chart of accounts: an account and a counter-account per pay statement item. A single chart applies to all employers. Write each account the way your software expects it: its number for Sage 50 Canada and Business Central, its name for QuickBooks Online (a sub-account is written “Parent:Sub-account”). An item has both accounts or none; without accounts, its lines stay outside the voucher.
• Export formats: CSV, Excel, PDF, QuickBooks Online and Sage 50 Canada are always offered; the formats you define here are added to them.

At each closing, the pay’s accounting voucher is created at the level of detail chosen in the employer record — By account (summed), By employee or By cost centre (department) — and transferred to the platform’s accounting entries. Accounts are frozen in the voucher when it is generated: a change to the chart applies to vouchers generated or regenerated afterwards.

The SFTP deposit #

Open Settings › Canadian payroll › SFTP deposit to deposit payroll outputs on your company’s SFTP server, each in its own folder:

• the Accounting voucher, when the pay is closed, in the chosen format;
• the Pay statements (PDF), when they are generated: one PDF per employee, named after the personnel number;
• the T4 (XML and PDF slips), when they are prepared;
• the Records of Employment (XML), when a record is declared issued.

Each folder name accepts the variables {annee}, {periode} and {perimetre}. Left empty, the default folder applies. The deposit acts on behalf of the person who performed the action, with their rights. A failed deposit is retried twice (after 5 and then 30 minutes), then reported to the managers.

Good to know #

• A sub-company without a Canadian employer record appears neither in pays, nor in remittances, nor in returns: each screen says so and links to Canadian employers.
• Revenu Québec, the HSF and the CNESST only concern employees who work in Quebec.
• Annual amounts (total payroll, training expenditures, exemption shares) are entered year by year: remember to add the new year before its first pay.

Frequently asked questions #

Where do I change the pay frequency? #

In Settings › Payroll › Reference periods, on the group the sub-company follows. The employer record only displays it.

Why can’t the pay of an employee in Quebec be calculated? #

Check that the employer record has the Revenu Québec number, its remittance frequency, the HSF sector and the year’s total payroll.

Can I have a different pay statement template for each employer? #

Yes. Save a template on the employer concerned; the others keep following the company template.