Pool and spa contractor payroll: a crew that arrives in April and leaves in October

Pool payroll follows the season, and the paperwork follows the crew

A pool company's headcount can triple between March and June and fall back by November. That rhythm creates a payroll calendar most small businesses never face: mass onboarding in spring, overtime through the opening rush, vacation pay on short employment periods, and a wave of Records of Employment in the fall. None of it is hard on its own; the failure mode is doing it late, because the owner is on a job site when the deadline passes. We run pool payroll on Wagepoint or QuickBooks Online Payroll with the seasonal calendar built in.

ROEs: the form pool companies file more than anyone

Every seasonal layoff is an interruption of earnings, and each one needs an ROE so the employee can claim EI over the winter. We file through ROE Web with code A, shortage of work, which is the correct code for the end of a season, and we file within the deadline — for electronic ROEs, five calendar days after the end of the pay period in which the layoff falls. A late or wrong ROE does not cost the employer money directly; it costs the crew their benefits and costs you the crew next April. Our answer on when a Record of Employment has to be issued covers the general rules.

The layoff itself has a clock. Under Ontario's Employment Standards Act a temporary layoff can run up to 13 weeks in any 20-week period, or up to 35 weeks in 52 if conditions such as continued benefits or a fixed recall date are met; past those limits the layoff becomes a termination. An October-to-April layoff is long enough that the conditions matter, so we document the recall date and benefit continuation when the layoff starts, not when someone asks.

Build crews and route technicians are not the same employee

Ontario treats employees who work on construction sites differently from other staff in a few areas of the ESA. Construction employees are generally exempt from public holiday pay and from termination and severance notice, while a route technician doing openings, closings and chemical visits is an ordinary employee with the full set of rules. A pool company running both crews from one payroll has to apply two rule sets, and mixed roles — a tech who spends June on installs and July on route — need a decision documented in the file. Overtime after 44 hours applies to both groups. We confirm the classification role by role rather than assuming the whole company is construction.

WSIB coverage is compulsory across most of the construction sector and the premium depends on the classification of the work, so the split between build labour and service labour affects the premium as well as the ESA rules. We keep payroll earnings coded by activity so the year-end WSIB reconciliation comes straight from the ledger.

Sub crews, excavation and the T5018 question

Excavators, concrete and gunite crews, electricians and fence installers are usually genuine subcontractors with their own equipment and other customers. A crew lead who works only for you, on your schedule, with your tools, usually is not — and the CRA's employee-versus-contractor tests do not care what the invoice says. Misclassifying a crew of five is how a pool builder ends up with back CPP, EI and WSIB premiums plus penalties in a single assessment. We review each sub relationship against the CRA factors before the season starts.

For the genuine subs, a pool company whose income is mostly construction files T5018 slips reporting what it paid each subcontractor for construction services in the year, and it should hold a WSIB clearance certificate for each of them. Our answer on which contractors have to file T5018 slips explains the more-than-half-construction test; a company that is mostly service and retail may fall outside it.

Trucks, commissions and paying yourself

Service vans and pickups that carry chemicals and equipment are motor vehicles rather than passenger vehicles for tax, which usually means no automobile standby charge — but personal use by an employee or the owner is still a taxable benefit at a reasonable value, and a log is what supports it. Salespeople paid commission on builds raise a timing point: commission earned at signing versus at completion changes when CPP, EI and tax are withheld, and a build that cancels after commission was paid needs a documented clawback. Owner pay is the last piece. A seasonal owner often takes salary through the season and settles the dividend split at year-end; we keep that flexible and file the T4 or T5 accordingly. Our payroll services page covers how we run payroll for every client, and the cross-border page for pool contractors covers owners who spend the off-season in the US.

Source: Service Canada — How to complete the Record of Employment.