Wagepoint has launched a unified Québec payroll service in its software platform, available in both French and English.
The move brings Québec-specific payroll tasks into the same workflow used for employers elsewhere in Canada. These include Revenu Québec remittances, RL-1 reporting, Québec statutory holiday pay under the 1/20 rule, and provincial income, deduction and benefit codes.
For many employers and accounting firms, Québec payroll has required separate processes because the province administers its own income tax system. Employers must remit to Revenu Québec as well as the Canada Revenue Agency, while also managing programmes such as the Québec Pension Plan, Québec Parental Insurance Plan and the Health Services Fund.
That has often meant using a second payroll system or relying on manual workarounds for staff based in Québec. The latest launch is intended to remove that split by allowing businesses with employees in Québec and other provinces to run payroll from one system.
Wagepoint is targeting small businesses, bookkeepers and accounting firms that manage payroll across more than one province. Québec payroll is included in the existing platform without extra charges for accounting software integrations, reporting, timesheets or multi-province support.
Québec is a large market for the sector. According to the latest Key Small Business Statistics from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the province has more than 228,000 small employer businesses with between one and 99 employees.
Operational burden
The broader backdrop is a payroll market where errors remain common. Wagepoint cited research from Deloitte and the National Payroll Institute showing that 75% of Canadian employees experience a payroll error in a given year.
For firms handling clients across the country, Québec has stood apart because of its separate tax remittances and reporting rules. Running parallel systems can add administrative work, increase training needs and complicate standardisation across client accounts.
Ben Richmond, Chief Executive Officer of Wagepoint, said the company built the product to reduce those complications for smaller employers.
"Québec has some of the most complex payroll requirements in the country, and for small businesses, that complexity can mean more time spent managing payroll and more workarounds to get it right," said Ben Richmond, Chief Executive Officer of Wagepoint.
"A business in Montréal or Rimouski should have the same simple payroll experience as a business in Calgary. We built Wagepoint's new platform so businesses can manage unified payroll the way they need to, without having to maintain a separate process for their Québec employees and clients," Richmond said.
Bilingual platform
A notable part of the launch is the bilingual interface across the full platform. Users can set the workflow in English or French at the user level, an important factor in Québec, where employers and employees may require payroll tools and records in French.
The platform also now handles CNESST calculations and remittances alongside QPP, QPP2 and QPIP. In addition, users can work with Québec income, deduction and benefit codes or create custom codes when needed.
Those changes could matter most to smaller operators that do not have dedicated payroll departments. In sectors such as retail, food service, health services and professional services, business owners often manage payroll alongside day-to-day operations and may have limited tolerance for fragmented systems.
Accounting and bookkeeping firms are another key audience. A single workflow for clients in Québec and the rest of Canada can reduce the need to maintain separate procedures, software relationships and staff training for one province.
Customer input
Wagepoint said Montréal accounting firm Guindi & Associates provided local input during development of the Québec payroll functions. That input focused on validating the company's approach to the province's payroll rules.
"Québec payroll has always required extra steps, so having it integrated into the same platform we already use creates a more seamless experience," said Allan Guindi of Guindi & Associates.
"We were pleased to help Wagepoint validate its approach to Québec's unique payroll requirements. The result makes payroll easier to manage, giving us more time to focus on providing advice and support to our clients," Guindi said.
Founded in 2012, Wagepoint says more than 30,000 businesses, accountants and bookkeepers use its payroll software. The Québec rollout extends into a part of the Canadian payroll market where provincial compliance requirements have long pushed smaller employers and their advisers towards duplicate systems or manual processes.