Introducing Contractor Payments: Pay your your entire Canadian workforce within Employment Hero

Contractor Payments is now live for Canadian businesses on Employment Hero — one platform to pay everyone, stay compliant and close the books faster.

If you’ve been managing contractors and employees on separate systems — one for payroll, another for timesheets, a spreadsheet for T4As — you already know the cost: hours of manual reconciliation, mismatched records and a year-end tax scramble that nobody enjoys.

We built Contractor Payments to fix that. Canadian businesses on Employment Hero can onboard, pay and manage independent contractors inside the same platform they use for their entire workforce.

Everything in one payroll run

When you open a pay run, your contractors sit right alongside your employees. One screen, one review, one submission. The platform handles the compliance difference automatically — contractors are paid without tax, CPP or EI deductions, as required under Canadian law.

No more exporting data to a separate tool, no more manually calculating net pay and no more wondering whether the numbers match. The platform enforces the boundaries so you don’t have to think about them.

Timesheets sync. Invoices stay organized. T4As file themselves.

Once a contractor’s timesheet is approved, those hours flow directly into the open pay run — zero re-keying required. Contractors can also upload invoices straight to their own profile, giving you a clean, auditable document trail for every engagement.

At year-end, generate T4As and submit directly to the CRA from within Employment Hero. The platform automatically flags anyone under the $500 CRA reporting threshold so nothing slips through the cracks.

Compliance built in, not bolted on

Worker misclassification is one of the most expensive mistakes a Canadian business can make. Every part of the contractor experience is designed to keep the legal line clear: a dedicated onboarding flow, compliance-first language throughout (contracts “conclude,” they don’t “terminate”) and a permanent contractor badge visible across the platform.

Tax identifiers — SIN, Business Number or GST number — are captured at setup and tied to CRA reporting automatically.

What you can do today

• Onboard contractors through a dedicated, compliance-first workflow
• Assign each contractor their own pay schedule with flexible frequency
• Approve timesheets and watch hours sync automatically into the pay run
• Let contractors upload invoices directly to their profile
• Pay without tax, CPP or EI deductions — correctly, by default
• Generate T4As and file directly to the CRA from within the platform
• Reactivate past contractors without losing their history
• Classify contractors as an individual or business and capture the right tax identifier

A few things to know

Contractor Payments is designed for independent contractors. Businesses in the construction industry should note that sub-contractor payments and T5018 slips are not currently supported. Quebec-based contractors will see a notice that RL-1 slips must be produced outside the platform for now. All contractors will need a Canadian bank account for direct deposit.

Why this matters

The blended workforce — a mix of permanent employees and independent contractors — is the operating reality for most growing Canadian businesses. Until now, managing both groups meant stitching together two separate systems and hoping the numbers lined up at year-end.

Contractor Payments closes that gap. It’s not a bolt-on module or a workaround — it’s woven into the same payroll, time tracking and document management experience you already use. One platform. One source of truth. No matter how your workforce is structured.

Log into Employment Hero to start onboarding your contractors today.

Not using Employment Hero already? Get in touch to learn more about how you can transform your payroll with us.