Small Business

A collection of our best small business articles.

Accounting & Bookkeeping: CA Payroll: CA Small Business: CA

June 17, 2016

The Complete History of the Social Insurance Number

A Social Insurance Number (SIN) is a 9-digit form of identification that every individual residing and/or working in Canada must have in order to access government benefits, file income taxes and, most importantly, get paid. (Through the fate of acronyms, SIN also sounds a bit biblical.) A short timeline of the SIN. 1964 — SINs were […]

What You Need to Know About Tips and Gratuities

Canadian tax laws for tips and gratuities impact businesses the service, hospitality or restaurant industries. As an employer, you’re affected when it comes to reporting tips and gratuities as income through the process of running payroll.

What You Need to Know About HAPSET in Manitoba

Unlike the provincial motto, “Gloriosus et liber” meaning “glorious and free,” there are very few things that are free when you own and/or operate a business in Manitoba. Enter the Health and Post-Secondary Education Tax Levy (HE Levy or HAPSET). What is the HE Levy? According to Information Bulletin HE 002, the HE Levy is a […]

Employee Terminations and Subsequent Payments

You would think that once an employee has been let go, that would be that. But payroll is never just that simple. It’s not at all uncommon for employees to be paid after what was supposed to have been their final paycheck and after a Record of Employment has been issued. From the employee perspective, […]

5 of the Most Asked Canadian Payroll Questions Answered

Like most payroll topics, there is no one easy answer. Generally, you are lost in a world of ‘choose your own adventure’ stories. On a good day, you can call some legislative agencies several times and get a different answer from each representative with whom you speak. To say this is frustrating is an understatement. […]

What You Need to Know About the BC Medical Services Plan

British Columbia has a mandatory medical service plan for all eligible residents and their dependents. The BC medical services plan is a provincial program that is meant to cover all or part of an individual’s health care costs. To qualify for BC MSP, applicants must meet ALL of the following criteria: must be a Canadian […]

What Do You Need to Include in an Employee’s Final Payroll?

As much as you want to avoid turnover as a business owner, a certain amount of attrition is to be expected in any company. When an employee leaves your company, thus ending their employment, you are required to administer a final payroll. The final pay will be your employee’s last form of compensation from your […]

The Four Ways that Direct Deposit Benefits Your Business

In the 1950s, checks were a really popular payment instrument with about 28 million checks being written daily. But as consumer preferences moved towards electronic payments that allowed them to pay for point-of-sale purchases faster, the popularity of checks started to plummet. According to the recent Direct Deposit and Check Statistics report, released by the […]