Payroll

Year-end payroll preparation can feel overwhelming for Canadian small business owners, making them feel like castaways adrift in a sea of payroll paperwork with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) looming on the horizon. It’s like being stuck on an island, Tom Hanks-style—frazzled, isolated, and just waiting for a volleyball named Wilson to show up for […]

Most small business owners find themselves trapped in a cycle of duplicate data entry, messy reports, and endless reconciliation. You run payroll in one system, then spend hours manually entering the same information into your accounting software. Sound familiar? Here’s the reality: when your payroll and accounting systems don’t talk to each other, you’re not […]

Payroll might look easy at first glance. Calculate hours, pay employees, and you’re done. But if you’ve been running a business for a while, you know the reality: payroll comes with a lot of moving parts, CRA deadlines, and compliance rules that can quickly make it feel overwhelming.  Choosing to outsource payroll to a bookkeeper […]

Picture this: It’s Monday morning and a bookkeeper in Halifax is already fielding calls from clients who forgot to submit their payroll hours again. Meanwhile, across the country, a bookkeeper in Saskatchewan is manually calculating stat holiday pay while simultaneously trying to remember which deduction codes apply to their newest client. Sound familiar? You’re not […]

As an employer, there are many decisions that you’ll have to make when it comes to hiring and paying your employees. Minimum wage, AKA the lowest hourly pay rate that an employer can pay an employee? That’s not one of them. In Canada, minimum wage by province or territory falls under the domain of the […]

Ontario payroll compliance comes with its own rules, from provincial Employer Health Tax to daily overtime and statutory holiday eligibility. This checklist keeps your business compliant and your team paid accurately. Prefer paper? Click Download as PDF on the lefthand menu to get a printable version. Let’s get started. Step 1: Obtain a Payroll Account […]

Running payroll in British Columbia comes with its own rules, from provincial Employer Health Tax to daily overtime and statutory holiday eligibility. This checklist keeps your business compliant and your team paid accurately. Prefer paper? Click Download as PDF on the lefthand menu to get a printable version. Let’s get started. Step 1: Obtain a […]

Payroll changes don’t wait for convenient timing. Whether it’s a raise partway through the month, a new hire starting mid-cycle, or a CRA rate adjustment during the quarter, changes happen. For small businesses, this is a normal part of payroll—not the exception. But normal doesn’t mean easy. Mid-cycle changes leave small businesses scrambling with manual […]

Summer’s winding down, and the busy fall season is just around the corner. Before year-end chaos kicks in — with ROEs, T4s, client questions, and compliance deadlines piling up — now’s the time to reset how you manage payroll.  Whether you’re juggling a few clients or dozens, streamlining and automating your workflows can help you […]

Clayton Achen, Managing Partner at Achen Henderson CPAs as well as leader of the firm’s Guru service line, which delivers fractional controllership, CFO services, and a full suite of payroll services to small businesses. This includes getting a small business set up on a payroll provider, teaching them how to drive their system, and even […]

As your business grows, having the right partners and technology in place is essential to preventing unnecessary roadblocks. We’ve seen how the right payroll provider can help your business grow — and how the wrong one can hold you back. What worked when your business was smaller might now be slowing you down with manual […]

As a business owner, what worked for a team of five might not cut it when you’re managing 50. A payroll system that once felt simple can quickly become a source of stress and even a business risk as your team grows. That’s why it’s important to revisit your payroll setup as you scale. Whether […]

Canada has seen a significant shift toward pay transparency legislation in recent years. For small business owners, understanding these laws — both current and upcoming — is critical to ensuring compliance, fostering equitable workplaces, and maintaining competitiveness. This article provides an overview of pay transparency trends across Canada and practical tips to ensure compliance. Pay […]

Managing payroll for multiple clients can be time consuming — especially during certain times of the year. So, the thought of switching payroll software solutions (on top of everything else) might feel like a harder path than trying to stick it out with your current tool or solution. But switching your payroll systems doesn’t have […]

What if one of your most underutilized advisory tools was already right at your fingertips? In our recent webinar, Leveraging Payroll Data for Smarter Financial Decisions, we explored how Canadian bookkeepers and accountants can tap into payroll data to deepen their advisory role, drive better business decisions, and elevate the value they deliver to small […]