Invoicing Software for Quebec Accounting Firms

How does invoicing software work for firms in Quebec?

Revenu Québec administers both the GST/HST and the QST in Quebec under an agreement with the federal government — the only province where the provincial revenue agency collects the federal tax. Quebec registrants report GST and QST together to Revenu Québec, not to the CRA.

A Quebec firm bills its own fees with GST and QST together and reports both to Revenu Québec. The letter matters more here than the invoice does: with a signed, priced scope in the client's language on the firm's letterhead, the billing conversation is already finished before it starts.

Do Quebec clients file a separate provincial return?

Quebec corporations file the federal T2 with the CRA and the CO-17 corporate return with Revenu Québec.

Quebec residents file two personal returns: the federal T1 with the CRA and the TP-1 with Revenu Québec. Quebec is the only province where individuals file separately with both administrations.

It also belongs in the fee schedule. Where a client's work includes both the federal return and the CO-17, the engagement letter should price both lines explicitly — an unpriced second filing is the most common quiet write-off in Quebec practices.

What is different about running a practice in Quebec?

Four things a firm working Quebec files should be able to state without looking them up. Each is verified against a primary source, linked at the foot of this page.

Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec is the provincial body; 228,622 of Quebec's 233,235 employer businesses were small businesses as of December 2024.

• Two tax administrations, every client — A Quebec corporation files a T2 with the Canada Revenue Agency and a CO-17 with Revenu Québec. A Quebec individual files a T1 with the CRA and a TP-1 with Revenu Québec. Every Quebec engagement carries two filing relationships instead of one.
• Revenu Québec collects the GST too — Quebec is the only province where the provincial revenue agency administers the federal GST/HST alongside its own QST, so Quebec registrants report both taxes to Revenu Québec.
• A lower personal instalment threshold — Quebec residents must pay personal tax instalments when net tax owing exceeds $1,800, against $3,000 for residents of every other province and territory — so more Quebec clients are instalment clients.
• Bill 96 francization obligations — Under Quebec's Law 14 (Bill 96), businesses with 25 or more employees in Quebec for six months must register with the OQLF and undergo francization, covering workplace communications, tools and IT systems. Non-compliance carries fines and exclusion from Quebec government contracts.

Which CRA deadlines apply?

These rules are federal and apply in every province and territory. Where a due date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the CRA treats the next business day as on time — compute the shifted date each year rather than carrying the calendar forward.

Managing invoicing software across a client book in Quebec

A firm's billing problem starts before the invoice: unless scope and price were agreed in writing, every bill is a negotiation.

A six-person Montreal practice models every corporate client as three obligations rather than one: the federal T2, the Quebec CO-17, and a combined GST/QST return filed with Revenu Québec. Personal clients carry two returns, T1 and TP-1. The failure mode is not forgetting a deadline — it is maintaining two calendars that quietly disagree, so the practice keeps both administrations' dates on a single board and sends client correspondence in the client's language on the firm's own letterhead.

How SpidNums handles it

SpidNums models the firm as clients, services and work. Assigning a typed service to a Quebec client is what generates the recurring projects, the stages and the reminders — the cadence is recorded once rather than remembered each period.

Every open obligation is then ranked by how close its due date sits and coloured accordingly, so the morning question — what is late, what is close, what is fine — is answered by looking.

• Services catalogue with per-service pricing lines
• Engagement letters built from assigned services or prior-year history
• Firm letterhead and branding on every client-facing document
• Client e-signature by type, draw or upload on a no-login page
• Signed PDF stored on the client record
• Annual renewal prompts when scope changes

Where this goes wrong

Billing failures start upstream of the invoice. By the time a fee is being argued about, the mistake was made months earlier.

• The engagement letter is a copy of last year's, so this year's expanded scope is unpriced.
• A client is asked to create an account to sign, and simply does not sign.
• Out-of-scope work is agreed by email and never makes it into the fee schedule.
• Renewals are not prompted, so a three-year-old letter is the only signed scope on file.

What SpidNums does not do

SpidNums is practice management with an invoicing workflow, not an accounts-receivable ledger. It produces the priced, signed engagement that your billing runs from — it does not process payments or age receivables.

If your firm already runs a tracking system it trusts, the honest answer is that you do not need this one. The pages on this site are written to help you decide, not to pretend every firm has the same problem.