Pay Payroll Liabilities (the Remittances screen) lists every remitting period of the year on the schedule CRA assigned you, with the date each remittance is due and the amount owed for it, and lets you record each one as paid. A remittance that is right but late is penalised like one that is wrong, and the penalty is on the whole amount, not only the late part, so this screen is about dates as much as amounts.
Open it
- Employees ▸ Pay Payroll Liabilities
- Home Page ▸ Employees band ▸ Pay Liabilities
What a remittance includes
A remittance is not just what was withheld from employees. It is the withheld amounts plus the employer's own contributions on the same wages, because both are handed over together:
- income tax withheld (federal, and provincial outside Quebec),
- the employees' CPP and EI,
- the employer's matching CPP and its EI (1.4 times the employees' premium, or the reduced rate if you have an approved plan).
Remitting only the deductions under-pays by roughly the employer's share every period.
Only pay runs that are approved, posted or paid count, and each run is counted in the period of its payment date, which is what CRA's deadline is measured from. A draft or calculated run is not owed on.
Quebec employers remit to CRA (federal tax, EI) and to Revenu Québec (Quebec tax, QPP, QPIP) separately. SeroBooks groups the amounts by the form and authority they go to.
Due dates
Due dates follow the Remitter type set in Employees ▸ Payroll Setup:
| Remitter type | Remitting periods | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterly | Each calendar quarter | 15 April, 15 July, 15 October, 15 January |
| Regular | Each month | The 15th of the following month |
| Accelerated threshold 1 | 1st to 15th, and 16th to the end of the month | The 25th of the same month, and the 10th of the next month |
| Accelerated threshold 2 | Four periods a month | The third working day after the period ends |
A due date on a weekend or federal holiday moves to the next business day. If the remitter type is wrong, every date on this screen is wrong; see Payroll Setup.
The screen
The screen is titled Remittances, with the current year as its subtitle. Its note reminds you that an accelerated remitter owes money paid on the 1st by the 25th of that month, three weeks before a regular remitter.
Tiles
| Tile | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Overdue | How many periods from the last twelve months are past their due date with no payment recorded. Periods with nothing owed are not counted here. |
| Periods this year | How many remitting periods fall in the year, from your remitter type. |
The table
One row per remitting period in the current year:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Period | The period start and end dates. |
| Due | The date the remittance is due. |
| Remitter | The remitter type the period was built from. |
| Amount | The total owed for the period across every form, or nil when nothing was paid in the period. |
| Paid | unpaid, or the date you recorded the payment. |
| (button) | Mark paid on each unpaid period. |
The table has the usual search, sorting, filters, Columns, Email and Export controls.
Record a remittance
Pay CRA first, through your bank or CRA's My Business Account, then record it here:
- Find the period and press Mark paid.
- The Record the remittance for period window opens.
- Check or fill in the fields below.
- Press Record it. The period's Paid column shows the date.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Paid on | The day the money left the bank, as YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to today. |
| Amount | Prefilled with what is owed. Change it if you paid a different amount. |
| Reference | The confirmation number, if you have it. It is your evidence if CRA says the payment did not arrive. |
If the save fails, SeroBooks shows its reason at the bottom of the screen.
What happens in the books
When pay runs are posted, the amounts owed are credited to Payroll Remittances Payable (CRA) (and the provincial account for Revenu Québec or a US state). Recording a remittance on this screen marks the period paid on the schedule; it does not write a journal entry.
Record the payment itself in your books as well, so the liability clears: debit the payroll remittances payable account and credit the bank account the money left, for example with a General Journal Entry. After that, the payable account's balance should equal the unpaid periods on this screen.
If the screen will not load
When SeroBooks cannot build the schedule (for example because the employer account has not been set up), the message says why and offers a Setup button that opens Payroll Setup.
Permissions
Mark paid needs the Record a Remittance permission under Payroll ▸ Remittances. Without it, SeroBooks asks someone whose role has it to approve.
The Payroll Remittance History report
Reports ▸ Employees & Payroll ▸ Payroll Remittance History shows what was owed period by period, what was paid and what is overdue, for any date range. See Employees & Payroll reports.
Common problems
- A period shows nil but you paid people that month. The pay run is not approved yet, or its payment date falls in another period. Approve the run; check its payment date.
- The amount is higher than the deductions on the pay runs. It includes the employer's CPP and EI, which you owe on top of the deductions.
- Everything shows as overdue. You may have runs from earlier in the year that were never recorded as remitted here. Record each one with the date you actually paid.
- The due dates look three weeks early (or late). Check the remitter type in Payroll Setup against CRA's letter.