Directors or delegate
Date Initially Prepared:
January 2005
Previous Procedure No.
Date Last Updated:
November 6, 2014
General:
Refer to APR 260 above. A template of the expense report form can be obtained from Business Services.
It is expected that all expenditures should be supported by original receipts and a brief description of the nature of the expenditure. Where a receipt is lost or not received, a description is still required with respect to the nature of the expense.
Employees will be reimbursed for all reasonable expenditures in the specific circumstances.
Business Services should ensure that all employee/contractor/volunteer/Board of Director Expense Reports are approved and entered into the general ledger as soon as possible. Where there could be a delay in entering expense reports into the system due to the absence of the approver, such
invoices should still be entered into the system and the approval received subsequently. Business Services shall ensure that all expense reports are approved as expeditiously as possible. Expense reports are only paid when approved. If there are unusual circumstances that prevent approval prior to payment, exceptions can be made to ensure that an individual is not short of funds to pay off credit card balances.
Volunteers must have their expenses approved by a CAWST staff member (refer to the Grants of Authority) prior to actually making the expenditures.
The expense report of the CEO is to be approved by a member of the Audit Committee.
All such employee expense reports entered into the system shall have the accounting code recorded, be marked with a “Posted” to indicate that the expense report has been entered into the system. The date the employee expense is entered should also be shown along with the “Posted”
symbol.
Accounting Procedure: Payroll APR 330 Procedure is Responsibility of: Board of Directors or
delegate
At all times in dealing with payroll related matters, Business Services must be continually aware of the private and confidential nature of payroll information. While there may also be contractors working at CAWST, the information related to these individuals, whether their contract
information or the periodic invoices submitted for payment, should receive the same level of confidentiality as accorded to CAWST employees.
Payroll information should always be kept under lock and key when not in use.
Prior to the payment of employees or contractors, Business Services should confirm that employees on the payroll have signed an approved contract. For further information on payroll related matters refer to Appendix A attached to this procedure.
Other:
All employees are paid semi-monthly; therefore there are no necessary accruals to be made at the end of the month.
A vacation pay accrual is tracked by Business Services. The liability should be agreed to the general ledger account as part of the monthly reconciliation of the payroll liability accounts.
At the month end a reconciliation of the payroll accrual and all payroll deductions recorded in the general ledger should be reconciled to the payroll register. It is anticipated that the balances in the payroll deduction liability accounts should only reflect the current month payroll activity. All employees who leave or who take their vacation is at the current rate of pay.
At the end of the year, the vacation pay accrual should be approved by the CEO.
No accrual is recorded for employee overtime though overtime hours are tracked by Business Services. The untaken overtime hours should be reviewed periodically to ensure that there is not a growing potential liability.
Also refer to APR 260 – Other Payroll for additional work with respect to month end reconciliations.
Other – Garnishments, Family Support, Maintenance Orders and Certain Wage Assignments
Employers are required by law to enforce garnishments, family support, maintenance orders, and certain wage assignments. As such, if an employee has one of these notices and CAWST has been advised, CAWST is required to withhold the specified amount or percentage of an employee’s wages and remit the amount to the applicable court or government agency.
A Requirement to Pay notice remains in force until the tax debtor’s liability is paid in full or until the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) releases the employer from its collection obligations.
Likewise, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) Third Party Demand notices must be adhered to until the liability is satisfied in full or the employer is released by HRSDC from its deduction obligations.
Even if an employee indicates that they have reached a settlement with the government regarding his or her outstanding debt, an employer is required to continue the specified deductions until they receive a written notice from CRA requesting that the deduction be terminated.
If more than one garnishment is received, legal counsel may need to be consulted to ensure how to proceed with multiple orders including handling the priority of one order over another.
Alberta permits a fee to be deducted for the administration of some of the orders. Not all orders necessarily permit the deduction of a fee. Business Services should ensure that before any fee is deducted that legal counsel may need to be consulted or a call made to the agency to confirm whether or not CAWST may deduct an administrative fee.
It should be noted that failure to make the required deductions may leave CAWST responsible for the deductions not remitted. In Alberta employers who do not comply with payment requirements could be held liable for the entire debt.
Appendix A
Employee and Contractor Hiring
Paid positions at CAWST are subject to approval of the CEO, who will assign wage, position description, and whether the position will be a contractor or employee.
The CCRA has guidelines on whether an individual is a contractor (self-employed) or an employee. CAWST will use these guidelines to determine the status of a hired individual.
Refer to http://www.ccra-adrc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc4110/README.html for more information on these guidelines.
Pay Periods
CAWST employees will be paid semi-monthly on the 15th and the last day of the month.
Cut off for any pay period will be the Friday prior to the payday. Also refer to the section on Overtime below.
Employment Insurance (EI), Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Federal and Provincial tax will be deducted from each pay. In addition to this, any other deductions will be taken off as applicable.
Employees will receive their net pay by direct deposit or by cheque.
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