Built for Canada, not localized to it
Localizing software usually means translating the interface, changing the currency symbol and adding a sales tax rate. That covers the easy parts. The hard parts of Canadian compliance are structural: a federal tax that is harmonized in some provinces and not others, provincial sales taxes with no input credits, Québec’s separate tax administration and pension plan, and thirteen different sets of employment standards.
When those rules are added to a product designed around another country’s system, they tend to live at the edges, as workarounds and manual adjustments. When they are designed in from the start, they become ordinary parts of how the system works. That is what we mean when we say SeroBooks is built for Canada, not localized to it.
Sales tax as Canadians actually pay it
SeroBooks handles GST, HST, PST and QST for every province. That includes the parts that trip up adapted software: PST recorded as part of an item’s cost rather than as a recoverable credit, QST input tax refunds alongside GST input tax credits, place-of-supply rules for goods shipped to other provinces, and separate returns for provinces that administer their own tax.
The same system also handles US sales tax and watches economic nexus across all 50 states, because many Canadian businesses sell into the United States and need to know when they cross a state’s threshold.
Payroll for thirteen jurisdictions
Payroll is where Canadian specifics matter most. CPP, CPP2 and EI are national, but Québec uses QPP and QPIP with a reduced EI rate. Income tax has federal and provincial components. Vacation pay, statutory holiday pay and overtime are set province by province, each with its own formula and eligibility rules. Employer levies differ: WCB boards, Ontario’s Employer Health Tax, Manitoba’s and Newfoundland and Labrador’s health and post-secondary education levies, Québec’s Health Services Fund.
SeroPayroll and payroll in SeroBooks Pro cover all thirteen provinces and territories, and we reconcile fourteen jurisdictions, including federal, against the CRA’s calculator. Year-end produces T4 and T4 Summary XML, T4A, T5018 and RL-1 slips, and ROEs are produced as .BLK files for ROE Web.
- CPP, CPP2, EI, QPP, QPP2 and QPIP
- T4127 federal and provincial income tax
- Vacation pay, stat holidays and overtime by statute
- PD7A remittances and Revenu Québec schedules
- T4, T4A, T5018 and RL-1 slips; ROE files
- WCB, EHT and provincial levies
Records the way the CRA expects
Compliance is also about records. The CRA expects businesses to keep books and records for six years, and to be able to show what changed and when. SeroBooks keeps an append-only audit trail, supports period locks so closed months stay closed, and retains records for six years in line with CRA expectations.
Year-end in SeroBooks includes T2 and GIFI support for corporations and capital cost allowance for fixed assets, so the numbers your accountant needs for the corporate return come from the same ledger as everything else.
Privacy and hosting
Sero runs on Microsoft Azure, with encryption in transit and at rest and per-business tenant isolation. Our privacy policy is shaped by PIPEDA, Canada’s federal private-sector privacy law. Card data stays in certified payment terminals and never touches our systems, and bank credentials used through Plaid never touch Sero.
We do not claim certifications we do not have. Formal certifications such as SOC 2 are on our roadmap, and we will say so plainly when that changes.
What to ask any vendor
Whether or not you choose Sero, a few questions separate software built for Canadian compliance from software adapted to it. Ask how the system records PST paid on business expenses. Ask how it handles Québec: QST returns, QPP and QPIP, RL-1 slips and Revenu Québec remittances. Ask how statutory holiday pay is calculated in each province where you employ people, and whether vacation pay moves to the higher rate automatically on the service anniversary.
Ask what files it produces for the CRA and Service Canada: T4 XML, ROE files, GST/HST return figures. Ask how quickly it updates rates each January. And ask what it does not support. A vendor that answers these clearly and specifically has thought about Canada; one that answers vaguely probably has not.
A Canadian company you can call
Sero Technologies is the trade name of Inputly AI Inc., a British Columbia corporation. When the rules change, whether it is a new holiday, a new HST rate or a change to CPP, our team is working under the same rules as our customers. And when you call, you reach a team in Pacific time that understands what a PD7A or an ROE is without needing an explanation.