August was a busy month across the platform. Canadian payroll gained built-in Section 87 treaty status tax exemption support and percentage-based deductions, Hero AI learned to manage timesheets through simple conversation and new tools landed for recurring compliance tasks, rostering and budget reporting. Wherever your team spends its admin time, there’s something in this round-up for you. Here’s what’s new and why it matters. 

Payroll updates: Accurate tax treatment, automatic deductions

Both of this month’s payroll additions came directly from what our customers told us they needed.

Built-in support for Section 87 treaty status tax exemptions

Employment Hero now supports Section 87 treaty status tax exemptions, built directly into payroll. Record a qualifying employee’s exemption once, including partial percentages for employees working both on and off reserve and the correct tax treatment applies automatically on every pay run.

• Enable the Treaty Status setting on the employee’s payroll profile and set their income tax exemption percentage (1–100%)
• Exempt and taxable income calculate automatically each pay run, with tax withheld only on the taxable portion
• A clear S87 badge identifies qualifying employees in every pay run, with exempt earnings visible on payroll detail
• CPP exemption settings are configurable per employee and EI continues to be handled as required
• Year-end T4 reporting for exempt income (Code 71) arrives in September — ahead of T4 season

Why it matters: With most payroll platforms, administering Section 87 exemptions means manually adjusting tax withholding for each qualifying employee, every single pay run, with no audit trail and real compliance risk if a cycle was missed. This is the end of manual adjustments for Indigenous organizations, built from what our customers told us they needed. And it’s a start, not a finish – we’re committed to continuing to build for Indigenous employers.

Want to learn more about Section 87 of the Indian Act? Start with our plain-language guide for payroll teams or download the Indigenous payroll compliance checklist.

Percentage-based deductions

Canadian payroll admins can now set up employee deductions as a percentage of earnings, rather than a fixed dollar amount only. Once configured, the correct amount calculates automatically every pay run based on actual earnings, no manual recalculation needed.

• Choose percentage of gross earnings or percentage of pensionable earnings as the calculation type when adding a deduction in Pay Run Inclusions
• Set a per-pay-run maximum to cap the amount taken in any single pay run, applied alongside the existing lifetime maximum
• Configure Union Dues deduction categories with a custom earnings basis — select exactly which income types count toward dues, so every employee on the same collective agreement calculates consistently
• Set a business-level default dues rate that flows to every assigned employee, with per-employee overrides where a specific arrangement requires a different rate, and a fixed-amount option for unions charging a flat rate per pay run
• Add notes to Canadian deductions directly in the pay run inclusions panel
• Recurring deduction lines now lock once included in a pay run for greater consistency and control

Why it matters: For any deduction tied to what an employee actually earns, the math now takes care of itself – the right amount, every pay run, no recalculating when earnings change. And for organizations with union agreements, dues can now be scoped once at the category level to match the collective agreement, rather than managed manually per employee.

Learn more here.

HR updates: Less admin, more automation

Conversational timesheet management with Hero AI

Managing timesheets is now as simple as having a conversation. Web and Work App users can use Hero AI to handle day-to-day timesheet tasks in natural language: no more navigating multi-screen menus.

• Employees can create, update or delete timesheets using simple prompts
• Managers can ask Hero AI to summarize pending timesheets and bulk-approve them in a few clicks

Why it matters: Timesheet admin is one of those small tasks that eats time on both sides. Employees logging hours and managers chasing approvals. Bringing it into a conversational interface means both get it done in seconds and payroll gets cleaner inputs.

Recurring compliance task distribution

Set a compliance task up once and let it run. Quarterly fire and safety checks, annual policy sign-offs, cyber security audits – recurring tasks can now distribute themselves on a schedule, with full visibility over every cycle.

• Recurring task templates: Set up a task once with a name, description, distribution target (whole organization, groups, named people or a specific email) and a schedule – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly or one-off
• Shared assignment: Set a template to Shared so a group of co-owners share one task instead of receiving individual copies — any one of them can complete it for the cohort
• New joiners covered automatically: Employees who join a targeted group mid-cycle are added to the active task with no manual admin
• Distribution visibility: Trigger a distribution on demand, with status tags, item counts and assignment type shown for each

Why it matters: Recurring compliance work is exactly the kind of admin that should run itself. Set the template, set the schedule and get oversight of every distribution automatically, every cycle.

Operating hours for scheduling

Managers can now configure when each work site operates, along with default shift lengths and breaks for every day of the week.

• Configure operating hours for each day of the week
• Set default shift durations and break lengths by day
• Automatically pre-fill shift details when creating new shifts
• Set labour rules to run only within operating hours

Why it matters: Managers often recreate the same shift details week after week; unnecessary manual work and an easy place for errors to creep in. Operating Hours removes that repetitive setup by suggesting shift details automatically when building a EDschedule and lays the foundation for smarter staffing forecasts. Available to all organizations using Work Sites and Positions.

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