Businesses that pay subcontractors must report those payments to the tax authority once a year. Contractor Slips adds up, for each vendor marked as a contractor, what you paid them in a calendar year and puts it on the right form. It flags anyone who cannot be filed as they stand — no business number, no address, no form chosen — so you can fix them before the deadline.
Opening it
Vendors ▸ Contractor Slips (T4A / T5018).
Before you start: mark your contractors
A vendor appears here only when their record has Contractor — gets a slip at year end ticked, with the form chosen. See Add or edit a vendor. In Canada:
- T4A, Box 048 — fees for services. Reported net of tax (without the GST/HST).
- T5018 — construction contract payments. Reported including tax.
The two are not interchangeable: the same payment on the wrong form is wrong by the tax rate. In the United States the form is 1099-NEC, Box 1, the amount paid.
Reading the screen
The screen opens on last year, the year you file for.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Year | Choose the year (this year and the six before it). |
| All, T4A, T5018 | Show every slip, or one form. (A US company has only 1099-NEC.) |
| Refresh | Reloads the figures. |
Notes along the top:
- What was PAID in the year — both forms are cash basis. A December bill paid in January is on the next year's slip.
- For the current year: … is not over. Every figure below is what has been paid so far, not what the slip will say.
- A warning banner when N contractor(s) cannot be filed as they stand — a missing business number, address or form. Each is named in the table.
A card shows each form's total and number of slips, with the box and the tax treatment in the form's own words.
The slips
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Contractor | The vendor. |
| Form | T4A, T5018 or 1099-NEC, or None when no form has been chosen. |
| Business no. / SIN | The vendor's tax number, or — when missing. |
| Payments | How many payments made the figure. |
| Gross paid | What was paid, tax included. |
| Tax | The tax within it. |
| On the slip | The amount that goes on the slip: net of tax for a T4A, gross for a T5018 or 1099-NEC. |
| Notes | under the threshold for anyone paid less than the filing threshold (CRA's is $500), and anything missing. Nobody is dropped for being under the threshold; whether a slip is needed is your judgement about the whole relationship. |
Click a row to see every payment behind the figure: Paid on, Document, Billed (the bill's date), Method, Gross, Tax and Net, each dated the day the money moved. The table can be exported.
Under the table, contractors who were paid nothing in the year are named, so the count matches your contractor list.
Preparing to file, step by step
- Open Contractor Slips on the year to file.
- Fix every contractor the warning banner names: open their record from the Vendor Centre and add the business number or SIN, the address, or the form.
- Choose Refresh and check the totals against your records. Click a row to check the payments behind it.
- Use the On the slip figures to file the slips with CRA (or the IRS).
What happens in the books
Nothing. This screen reads your payments; it posts nothing.
Common problems
A contractor is missing. Their vendor record is not marked Contractor — gets a slip at year end, or nothing was paid to them in the year.
The figure is smaller than what I billed them. Slips count what was paid, in the year it was paid. Unpaid bills, and bills paid the following January, are not included.
Form shows None. The vendor is marked as a contractor but no form was chosen. Choose T4A or T5018 on their record.