Payroll Software for Canadian Accounting Firms

How do payroll remittance deadlines work in Canada?

The deadline is set by the employer's remitter type, which the CRA assigns from the average monthly withholding amount (AMWA) two years prior. There are four tiers, and each has a different rhythm.

This is why a payroll service line is a scheduling problem before it is a calculation problem: two clients with identical payrolls can owe on different days because they sit in different tiers.

• Quarterly: AMWA under $3,000 with a clean compliance record, plus eligible new small employers — remit by the 15th after each calendar quarter.
• Regular: AMWA under $25,000 — remit by the 15th of the month following the month deductions were made.
• Accelerated Threshold 1: AMWA $25,000 to $99,999.99 — by the 25th for periods ending the 1st to 15th, and by the 10th of the following month for periods ending the 16th to month-end.
• Accelerated Threshold 2: AMWA $100,000 or more — within three working days after each of four weekly periods, through a Canadian financial institution.

What changes when a client moves between remitter types?

Every future due date. A client moving from regular to accelerated Threshold 1 goes from one remittance a month to two, on dates that do not resemble the old ones. A firm that wrote the dates down has to rewrite them; a firm that recorded the cadence changes one field.

SpidNums models the remitter type as the payroll service's cadence, so next month's projects and reminders are generated from the corrected rule rather than from last month's list.

What does a late remittance cost?

The penalty scales with lateness rather than being flat: 3% for amounts one to three days late, 5% for four to five days, 7% for six to seven days, and 10% where more than seven days late or not remitted at all. A second or subsequent failure in the same calendar year, made knowingly or through gross negligence, carries a 20% penalty.

Three days is the entire distance between 3% and 10%. That is a reminder-timing problem, and it is the reason payroll reminders should fire before the remittance date rather than confirming it afterwards.

How do firms handle T4 and T5 slip season?

By starting in January. T4, T4A and T5 slips and their summaries must be filed with the CRA and distributed to recipients by the last day of February following the calendar year. Where that date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the next business day applies — compute the shifted date rather than assuming it.

The late-filing penalty for information returns is graduated by slip count and days late, with a minimum of $100 and a maximum of $7,500. It is not a flat per-slip amount, so a large employer filing a week late is in a materially different position from a small one.

Do provinces add payroll obligations of their own?

Several do, and they sit on top of CRA source deductions rather than replacing them. Ontario levies an Employer Health Tax above an exemption threshold. Quebec is the largest departure: Quebec employers remit provincial source deductions to Revenu Québec alongside the federal remittance, so a Quebec payroll client carries two remittance relationships.

Rates and thresholds for provincial payroll levies change, and this site does not publish figures it has not verified. Confirm the current rate with the provincial ministry before advising a client, and model the provincial obligation as its own service so it has its own deadline.

What does a firm need to record when it takes on a payroll client?

Six fields, and getting them at intake is what prevents the first missed remittance. Most payroll onboarding failures are not process failures — they are a piece of information nobody asked for in the first week.

• The payroll account number and the remitter type the CRA has assigned.
• The pay frequency, which is not the same thing as the remittance frequency.
• The province of employment for each employee group, because provincial obligations follow it.
• Whether the employer has provincial payroll levy exposure above the applicable exemption.
• Who at the client sends the hours, and by when relative to each pay date.
• Whether the firm or the client transmits the remittance — get this in writing in the engagement letter.

What does the payroll year look like from the firm's side?

It has one peak and eleven months of rhythm. From March to December the work is the remittance cycle: collect hours, run payroll, remit by the date the client's tier sets, repeat. January is preparation — reconciling the calendar year's payroll data while the client can still explain an anomaly. February is the slip deadline, and it is unforgiving because it is a fixed date rather than a client-specific one.

That shape argues for opening slip-season projects in January rather than February, and for scheduling the reconciliation before the year closes rather than after it. A firm that chases December payroll data in the third week of February is chasing it against a deadline with no slack.

What SpidNums is not

SpidNums does not calculate payroll, does not produce pay runs, and does not file remittances or slips. Those happen in your payroll system. SpidNums tracks which client owes what and when, so the work reaches that system before the date rather than after it.

A firm running payroll for two clients does not need this. A firm running payroll for seventy, across four remitter types, has a scheduling problem that a calendar cannot hold.