Payroll isn’t just paperwork. It’s a reflection of how you run your business.
There’s no faster way to lose the trust of your crew, or raise red flags with regulators, than to get payroll wrong. Late paycheques. Underpaid overtime. Misfiled ROEs. Inaccurate union remittances. Even one mistake can snowball into a reputation hit or a CRA audit.
And yet, for many Canadian subcontractors, payroll is still held together by paper timesheets, duct-taped spreadsheets, and long nights of manual math. That might work when you’re small. But as you grow (more sites, more workers, more provinces) the cracks show fast.
So how should construction companies actually run payroll?
Let’s walk through the four most common approaches we see in the field, from manual spreadsheets to construction-first software, along with the real pros, cons, and compliance risks of each.
Because when you understand what each approach really means, you’re better equipped to pick a path that scales with your team.
The Old-School Route: Manual Payroll
Some companies are still doing payroll the way they did twenty years ago. Time gets written on a piece of paper, handed to the office, punched into a spreadsheet, and then (after some calculator gymnastics) workers get paid via bank upload. Everything from T4s to ROEs gets done manually through CRA’s web portal.
In fairness, this works… for a while. It’s cheap, familiar, and gives owners total control. You know where every dollar goes.
But every manual step is a liability. Forget to apply the correct overtime rule for a provincial holiday? That’s back pay. Enter a digit wrong in a spreadsheet? That’s a phone call from the bookkeeper. (Or worse, the union.)
And once you cross 15 or 20 employees, the admin time can become unsustainable. Especially if you’re dealing with multiple sites, union crews, or any kind of workforce turnover. The paperwork alone will eat your week.
Bottom line: If you’re a very small firm in a single province with little movement, manual payroll can survive—for now. But it won’t grow with you.
The Modern Office Approach: Generic Payroll Software
For those ready to move past spreadsheets, the next step often looks like Wagepoint, ADP, or Ceridian. These systems take care of the math: calculating deductions, generating paystubs, making CRA remittances, and filing year-end slips.
If you’ve got a single office, no unions, and steady full-time employees, these platforms are a huge upgrade. They save time, look professional, and keep you onside with the CRA.
But the moment you try to map payroll back to job costing or manage workers across multiple roles, provinces, or pay rates, things get messy. These tools weren’t built for the construction site, they were built for HR departments and salaried teams. So they don’t understand your real-world needs: blended rates, cost code splits, union dues, CCQ filings.
That’s when you find yourself back in Excel, exporting CSVs, trying to bridge the gap.
You traded manual entry for manual workarounds.
The Construction Reality: Field-First Payroll Software
Construction doesn’t follow clean office rules, and your payroll system shouldn’t either.
That’s where construction-specific software comes in—platforms built to handle the realities of blended crews, job-coded hours, provincial labor rules, and mobile teams.
The biggest difference? These tools start in the field, not the back office.
Your crews log time directly from site, on mobile devices. Supervisors approve entries in real-time. Every hour is already tied to the right project, cost code, and classification before it hits payroll. No spreadsheet cleanup required.
Overtime is calculated according to provincial rules, premiums are added where needed, and union rates are applied automatically. In Québec, tools like Corfix can handle weekly CCQ reports and trust fund remittances.
It’s more accurate AND it’s defensible. If a union rep or auditor ever comes knocking, every form, signature, and timestamp is already in the system.
And because these platforms connect directly to accounting or job costing tools, you can finally see true labor costs by job, without three layers of reconciliation.
This is exactly where Corfix shines: It captures time in the field, applies construction-specific rules, and centralizes everything—payroll, safety, certs, and compliance—in one place. Your admin team spends less time chasing paperwork. Your job costs are real. And your crews? They’re not left wondering if their hours made it to payroll.
The Outsourced Option: Payroll Service Providers or PEOs
Finally, some firms choose to hand it all off. With payroll service providers or professional employer organizations (PEOs), you offload the day-to-day to a third party. They run the calculations, file with the CRA, issue cheques, and maybe even become the employer of record.
This can make sense if you’re operating across multiple legal entities or don’t have the internal capacity to manage a growing team. A good payroll provider will be fast, accurate, and consistent.
But there are real trade-offs. You lose control. You’re dependent on their timelines. And in construction, that can backfire, especially if your provider doesn’t fully understand CCQ reporting, union remittances, or industry-specific requirements.
Plus, subcontractors are built on trust. Crews expect direct communication from their employer. Handing that relationship off to a PEO can feel cold; or worse, create confusion when there’s an issue.
So What’s the Right Move?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but a few decision points help clarify the path:
- Small and stable (<20 people, one province)? You can probably get by with manual or generic payroll—just know the clock is ticking.
- Scaling fast with mobile crews or union jobs? You’ll need construction-aware software sooner than later.
- Need payroll to feed job costing and profitability tracking? Generic software won’t cut it. Look for tools that start in the field.
- Don’t want the admin at all? Outsourcing might be the call, but only if your provider understands the industry.
The key is this: no tool can fix broken inputs. Clean time data, clear policies, and disciplined approvals are the foundation. But the right system? It makes everything faster, more accurate, and easier to scale.
Payroll Isn’t Just About Paying People
It’s about how you run your business.
It’s your proof of compliance. Your defense against audits. Your source of truth for labor costs. And, most importantly, it’s how your team measures whether you have your shit together.
If your payroll process feels like chaos, your crews feel it. So do your clients. So does the CRA.
But if it’s clean, fast, and reliable? That’s a competitive edge you can take to the bank (forgive the pun).
Want to See How Corfix Simplifies Construction Payroll?
Let us show you how our timekeeping, safety, and compliance tools work together to reduce admin time, prevent payroll errors, and keep your job costs real-time and reliable.