Support

The basics

What is PayCub?

PayCub is a payroll web application for Canadian small businesses. It lets you create pay stubs, calculate deductions, and email pay stubs directly to employees.

Is PayCub right for me?

PayCub works best for business owners who have a basic understanding of payroll. If you're new to running payroll in Canada, the how payroll works in Canada guide is a good place to start. We're also happy to answer basic payroll questions over email.

Does PayCub pay my employees or remit to CRA on my behalf?

No. PayCub is not a full-service payroll provider. It calculates deductions and generates pay stubs, but payroll remittances and direct deposits are your responsibility. This keeps PayCub significantly more affordable than full-service providers.

This page covers the questions our support team hears most: backdating pay stubs, why your stub history locks as you go, how CPP/EI maximums and TD1 carry forward, what PayCub calculates for you, and how billing works across active and inactive employees. If your question is about getting set up or running your first payroll, the how PayCub works guide and FAQ are good starting points too.

Backdated pay stubs

A common assumption when people sign up is that they can immediately generate a full year (or more) of historical pay stubs to "catch up" their records. PayCub doesn't work that way, and that's by design: payroll history has to be built one accurate pay run at a time, in order, so that year-to-date totals, deductions, and CRA maximums stay correct.

Here's what's included, and what isn't:

If you need to bring in more than 60 days of payroll history, that's not something the self-serve tool is built to do on its own, and it isn't something we charge a flat rate for either, since the amount of work involved depends entirely on how far back you need to go and how many employees are involved. Email us with how many months you need and how many employees, and we'll quote it. The further back the history, the larger the discount we apply per month.

Why older stubs lock

Once a pay stub exists in PayCub, the stubs before it lock. You can keep adding new pay runs going forward, but you can't go back and edit a stub that already has runs after it.

This isn't a software limitation we'd remove if we could. It's how payroll records have to work:

• Accuracy chains forward. Every pay run's year-to-date totals, CPP/CPP2 contributions, and EI premiums are calculated based on everything that came before it. Change an old stub, and every stub after it is now wrong.
• Stubs are records, not drafts. Once a stub has been generated and (in most cases) sent to an employee, it's a record of what they were actually paid and what was actually withheld. Editing it after the fact would mean the employee is holding a pay stub that no longer matches what's on file, which creates real problems if they ever need it for a loan application, a tax question, or a CRA review.
• It protects you, too. A locked, sequential history is exactly what you want to be able to point to if CRA ever has questions about a former or current employee's pay.

If you genuinely entered something wrong on a recent run, contact us. Depending on how recent it is and what changed, there are ways to correct it without compromising the integrity of the record, but it has to go through us rather than a self-serve edit.

CPP, CPP2 and EI maximums

Every year, the CRA sets maximum annual contribution amounts for CPP, CPP2, and EI. Once an employee's year-to-date contributions hit that maximum, deductions for that program stop for the rest of the year, both for the employee's share and the employer's matching share.

PayCub tracks each employee's year-to-date CPP, CPP2, and EI contributions automatically, run after run, and stops deducting once they reach the annual maximum. You don't have to watch for it or calculate it yourself; it's handled the same way, every time, for every employee.

Bonuses, RRSP, vacation pay and piecework

PayCub handles several earnings and deduction types beyond a standard hourly or salary wage. Here's how each works:

Bonuses

Bonuses can be added to any pay run as a separate earning. PayCub calculates the additional tax withholding correctly for bonus payments (which the CRA treats differently from regular pay) so the right amount is deducted at the time it's paid, not corrected later at year-end.

RRSP contributions

You can add an RRSP contribution as a line item on a pay stub. It shows up on the stub for the employee's records but does not affect tax calculations: income tax, CPP, and EI are still calculated on the full gross pay.

Piecework

For employees paid by output rather than by the hour (common in trades, agriculture, and manufacturing), PayCub supports piecework pay. You set the per-unit rate on the employee's profile, and enter the number of units completed each pay period. PayCub calculates gross pay from there, and still applies minimum wage top-up rules where they apply provincially.

Vacation pay

Vacation pay is a per-employee setting, configured on the employee's profile. There are two modes:

Both are configured the same way: set the percentage, choose the mode, and PayCub takes care of the calculation and the line item on the pay stub from there. If you're not sure which applies to your employees, check your provincial employment standards: some provinces have specific rules about which method is permitted for which type of employee.

TD1 and tax credits

TD1 claim amounts are entered the first time you run payroll for a new employee, not during initial employee setup. PayCub prompts you for the federal and provincial TD1 claim codes when generating that employee's first pay stub.

From that point forward, the TD1 settings carry over automatically on every subsequent pay run. You don't need to re-enter them each time.

If an employee's situation changes (a new dependant, a change in their spouse's employment, additional credits they want to claim), you can update their TD1 directly on a pay stub at any time. The new setting becomes the default and carries forward from that point on, the same way the original one did.

Remittance and PD7A

PayCub generates a PD7A summary for each remittance period so you know exactly what you owe CRA for CPP, EI, and income tax. You take that amount to your bank or submit it through CRA My Business Account yourself. PayCub does not remit on your behalf.

When setting up your company in PayCub, you choose your remittance frequency. CRA assigns your frequency based on your average monthly withholding, so use whichever one CRA has you on:

Printing cheques

PayCub is formatted for standard Canadian payroll cheque stock. Cheques are not provided by PayCub; you order them separately from any office supply or cheque printing service that carries standard payroll cheque stock (widely available online).

To print a cheque, open the pay stub you want to print, click Preview Pay Stub, then select Print Cheque from the top menu. The layout aligns automatically to the cheque fields; no manual positioning needed.

Multiple companies, one account

Yes. A single PayCub account can hold as many companies as you need. Each company has its own employees, pay schedule, province, and history, fully separated from the others, but you manage them all from one login without separate subscriptions or separate sign-ins.

To add or switch between companies, go to Home → Bookkeepers. From there you can create a new company, rename an existing one, or switch your active company.

This applies whether you're a business owner running payroll for more than one of your own companies, or a bookkeeper or accountant managing payroll for a roster of clients. If the latter sounds like you, our guide on running a bookkeeping practice with PayCub goes deeper on the multi-client tools available under Bookkeeper Pro.

T4s

PayCub generates CRA T4 slips for your employees based on the payroll history you've run through the year. To access your T4 reports, go to Home → T4 Reports.

T4s are generated per tax year. Make sure all pay runs for the year are entered and confirmed before generating your T4s, since the slips pull from your year-to-date totals for employment income, CPP contributions, EI premiums, and income tax deducted.

Active employees and billing

PayCub is priced per active employee, not per company and not per seat. This means your bill reflects the people you're actually running payroll for right now, not your total headcount over time.

What happens when someone leaves

When an employee stops working for you, you don't need to delete them to stop being billed for them. Give them an end date on their employee profile, and they become inactive: their full pay history and tax records stay intact and accessible (which you'll want for T4s, ROE requests, and any future questions), but they no longer count toward your active employee total or your bill.

Cancelling your subscription

You can cancel at any time, either by emailing [email protected] or by going to Home → My Subscription → Manage Subscription. Your payroll history and employee records remain accessible until the end of your current billing period.

Before you contact us

A lot of questions we get are answered faster by self-serve resources than by waiting on an email reply. Worth checking first:

• Setup and first payroll questions: the how PayCub works guide walks through company setup, adding employees, vacation pay settings, TD1, and running your first pay cycle step by step.
• General questions about how Canadian payroll works: the how payroll works in Canada guide covers the broader rules that apply regardless of which software you use.
• Quick answers: the FAQ covers the most common questions about plans, features, and how PayCub handles specific situations.

If you've checked those and you're still stuck, or your question is specific to your account, your data, or your billing, that's exactly what email support is for. Include your company name and as much detail as you can about what you're seeing; it helps us get you a useful answer on the first reply instead of a round of clarifying questions.