Payroll is CRA-compliant Canadian payroll - T4-compliant pay stubs, T4/T4A/T5018 year-end reporting, direct deposit posting, CRA remittance support, and direct posting of the proper salary + CPP + EI + tax payable journal entries into Ledger. Multi-entity payroll ledgers at Pro+ mean each Vastura entity has its own payroll register.
Payroll Starter at $29/mo CAD covers sole prop / micro-business paying 1-5 employees. Pro at $59/mo unlocks multi-entity, unlimited employees, direct deposit, T4/T4A year-end, CRA remittance support, and Ledger JE automation. Enterprise at $159/mo adds multi-entity payroll ledgers, Employee Portal feed, dedicated CSM.
Built for the Canadian SMB that needs proper payroll, not a generic global tool with Canadian compliance as an afterthought. Payroll handles CPP / EI / federal + provincial tax tables, year-end T4 prep, T5018 sub-contractor reporting, and the Ledger journal automation that closes the loop.
15-day free trial - No credit card - CAD-pricedThe popular Canadian payroll tools split into two camps. Camp one is the bookkeeper-tier - $30-$60/mo CAD, basic pay stubs, manual T4 prep, no direct Ledger integration. Camp two is the full HRIS+payroll - $4-$8 USD/employee/mo (call it $5-$11 CAD with FX), bundled with HRIS features you may not need, with most features locked behind mid-tier.
Neither camp posts a proper journal entry to your accounting tool automatically. Both expect either manual journal posting at month-end or a Zapier bridge that breaks every quarter. For a multi-entity SMB this is worse - your bookkeeper has to manually allocate salary across entities each pay cycle.
Multi-entity payroll is broken in particular. The popular tools assume one payroll register per subscription. If you run 3 entities, you run 3 payroll subscriptions or smush everything together and lose per-entity P&L accuracy. Per-entity payroll registers usually appear at the Enterprise tier ($15+ USD/employee).
Payroll is the Canadian SMB payroll tool that posts directly into Ledger, handles multi-entity natively at Pro+, and prices per-tier (not per-employee). For a 10-employee operation, Pro at $59/mo CAD compares favourably to $50-$110 USD/mo on per-employee tools.
Payroll Starter at $29/mo CAD covers sole prop or micro-business paying 1-5 employees with T4-compliant pay stubs, single entity. Replaces the spreadsheet + manual T4 prep without the complexity of full HRIS bundling.
Payroll Pro at $59/mo CAD unlocks multi-entity (run payroll across 3 Vastura entities under one subscription), unlimited employees, direct deposit posting (export to bank file or push via API), T4 / T4A / T5018 year-end prep, CRA remittance support, and Ledger journal automation - the salary + CPP + EI + tax payable journal posts to the correct entity's Ledger automatically each pay cycle.
Payroll Enterprise at $159/mo CAD adds multi-entity payroll ledgers (fully separate payroll registers per entity for clean audit trails), Employee Portal feed (the per-seat Employee Portal product reads pay stub data from Payroll), and the dedicated CSM. Built for the multi-entity holdco running cross-entity payroll.
Critical: Payroll is attached to Ledger by design. Every pay cycle posts the proper journal entry to the correct entity's Ledger. Multi-entity SMBs avoid the salary-vs-Ledger reconciliation nightmare entirely. Year-end T4 prep ties out to the per-employee YTD already in Ledger.
Eight payroll modules covering pay stub generation, direct deposit, CRA reporting, and Ledger journal automation - all built for Canadian SMBs.
Generate pay stubs that comply with T4 reporting requirements - CPP, EI, federal + provincial tax, vacation accrual, year-to-date totals. Per-employee bilingual (EN/FR) for QC employers. PDF export per employee per pay cycle.
Export direct deposit batches to your bank's CPA-005 / EFT file format (RBC, TD, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, Tangerine, Neo, EQ Bank, plus credit unions). Or push via bank API where supported. Saves the manual EFT entry step.
Generate T4 (employee), T4A (sub-contractor / pension), T5018 (construction sub-contractor) at year-end. CRA-export-ready XML files. Bulk email or print to employees.
Calculate the proper CRA monthly remittance (employer + employee portions of CPP, EI, federal tax, provincial tax). Generate the remittance summary report for online banking remittance. Tracks remittance threshold tier (regular, accelerated 1, accelerated 2).
Run payroll across multiple Vastura entities under one subscription. Per-entity payroll registers (at Enterprise), per-entity T4 prep, per-entity Ledger journal posting. Cross-entity employee transfers handled correctly.
Each pay cycle posts the salary + CPP + EI + federal tax + provincial tax + benefit liability journal entries to the correct entity's Ledger automatically. No manual journal posting. Audit log captures every JE write.
Pay stub data from Payroll surfaces to the per-seat Employee Portal product ($7/employee/mo) so employees can view pay stubs, YTD summaries, T4s. Reduces 'where's my pay stub' email volume to near zero.
Weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly pay cycles supported. Mixed cycles per entity supported. Holiday pay, vacation accrual, overtime, statutory pay all handled per provincial labour rules.
| Feature | Vastura | Industry SMB average |
|---|---|---|
| Pay stub generation (T4-compliant) | ✓ from Starter | ✓ |
| Direct deposit posting | ✓ Pro+ | ✓ Pro+ |
| T4 / T4A / T5018 year-end | ✓ Pro+ | ✓ Pro+ |
| Direct Ledger payroll JE | ✓ Pro+ | × requires Zapier glue typically |
| CRA remittance support | ✓ Pro+ | ✓ Pro+ |
| Multi-entity payroll ledgers | ✓ Pro+ | × usually one entity per subscription |
| Employee Portal (per-seat add-on) | ✓ $7/emp/mo | partial |
| CAD-priced (no FX surcharge) | ✓ | partial Canadian tools yes, USD tools no |
| Tier-priced (not per-employee) | ✓ | × per-employee $4-$8 USD typical |
| Bilingual (EN/FR) pay stubs for QC | ✓ | partial |
| Provincial tax tables (all 10 provinces + 3 territories) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vacation accrual + provincial labour rules | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audit log on every pay cycle | ✓ | partial |
| Pay cycle variants (weekly / bi-weekly / semi / monthly) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Overtime + statutory holiday handling | ✓ | ✓ |
| Year-to-date summaries per employee | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bank file format support (CPA-005) | ✓ Pro+ | ✓ |
For a 10-employee operation, Vastura Payroll Pro at $59/mo CAD compares to $40-$80 USD/mo on per-employee tools ($55-$115 CAD with FX). For 25 employees the gap widens: $59/mo flat vs $100-$200 USD/mo on per-employee tools.
Multi-entity is where Payroll really wins. If you run 3 entities, Pro at $59/mo covers all 3 in one subscription with proper per-entity Ledger JE automation. The popular per-employee USD tools would charge 3x and still wouldn't auto-post to Ledger.
Every tier includes a 15-day free trial. Cancel anytime. Annual billing saves 25%. All prices in Canadian dollars.
Sole prop or micro-business paying 1-5 employees
Growing SMB with multi-entity payroll
Multi-entity holdco payroll + CRA remittance + year-end T4/T4A
15-day free trial - Cancel anytime - CAD-priced - No FX surcharge
Four personas we built this product for. Find yours below.
Sarah's consulting Inc pays her a salary plus dividends. Starter at $29/mo handles her bi-weekly T4-compliant pay stub, CPP, EI, year-end T4. Saves her accountant $400 of payroll prep at year-end.
Best fit: Payroll Starter
Marcus runs a 10-employee shop. Pro at $59/mo handles his bi-weekly direct deposit, CRA remittance reporting, multi-entity payroll across 2 Vastura entities. Ledger JE posts automatically each pay cycle.
Best fit: Payroll Pro
Lisa's holdco runs 4 entities and 40 employees. Enterprise at $159/mo gives per-entity payroll registers, Employee Portal feed for self-service, year-end T4 prep across all entities, dedicated CSM for the SOC 2 review.
Best fit: Payroll Enterprise
Devon's construction firm pays 8 employees + 12 sub-contractors. Pro handles T4 for employees, T5018 for sub-contractors, multi-province (BC + AB + ON) tax tables, WCB premium calculation feeds.
Best fit: Payroll Pro
Vastura is a stack, not a single tool. Each product passes data into the next so you stop running glue scripts and CSV exports.
Each pay cycle posts the proper salary + CPP + EI + federal tax + provincial tax + benefits journal to the correct entity's Ledger. Per-entity routing automatic.
Payroll run -> Ledger Salary JE -> Per-entity liabilityPeople feeds employment records, salary history, and direct deposit info into Payroll. Pay run is one-click once the employee record is up-to-date.
People record -> Payroll run -> Pay stubPer-seat Employee Portal ($7/employee/mo) surfaces pay stubs, T4s, YTD summaries to the employee directly. Reduces HR email volume significantly.
Payroll pay stub -> Employee Portal -> Employee viewHourly employees can log time in Pilot; hours flow into Payroll for the pay cycle. Project labour cost attribution preserved.
Pilot hours -> Payroll cycle -> Project COGSPayroll questions (missed pay, deduction queries, benefit changes) route through Keystone with the employee record pre-attached. Per-Cowork ACL keeps sensitive HR data restricted.
Employee question -> Keystone HR ticket -> ResolutionConductor at Pro+ can schedule the pay cycle review, draft the CRA remittance summary, post the Ledger JE preview - all autonomous within Director-set approval gates.
Conductor cron -> Payroll cycle -> Ledger JE previewWarehouse staff hours from Pilot + People flow into Payroll; labour cost feeds into Inventory landed cost for proper COGS attribution per SKU.
People + Pilot -> Payroll -> Inventory landed costStudio-generated onboarding and policy videos integrate with the Payroll-driven onboarding workflow (signed terms before first pay cycle).
Studio video -> People onboarding -> Payroll activateEvery Vastura tier includes a 15-day free trial. No credit card is required up front - you only enter payment when you decide to keep the subscription past day 15. If you cancel within the trial window, your data stays accessible in read-only mode for 30 days so you can export everything cleanly.
If you subscribe and decide within 15 days that Payroll is not the right fit, contact support and we refund the prorated month in full - no questions, no retention call. Annual subscribers get a prorated refund on unused months minus a 5% admin fee, processed back to the original payment method within 7 business days.
Yes - your data is yours. Vastura supports full CSV / JSON / PDF export across every product. Payroll exports include all transactional records, configuration, audit log entries, and attachments. We also provide a Cutover Toolkit (Enterprise tier) for migrating to or from competing platforms with mapping templates included.
Multi-entity is native, not an afterthought. From the Pro tier upward, you can run multiple businesses (Inc / sole prop / partnerships) under one login with per-entity books, branding, and identity. The Enterprise tier unlocks unlimited entities plus consolidated reporting across the holdco. One operator, multiple businesses, one subscription instead of one-per-entity.
Vastura Ltd is Alberta-incorporated and built specifically for Canadian operators. USD-priced SaaS hits Canadian SMBs with a 35-40% FX surcharge after exchange and credit card cross-border fees. We price in CAD, charge in CAD, and write all tax surfaces (GST/HST, CCA, T2 prep) to Canadian rules first. International expansion comes later, but Canada is home base.
All Vastura data sits on Cloudflare's enterprise tier with end-to-end TLS 1.3, at-rest encryption, role-based access control, and a full audit log on every write. We're on the SOC 2 Type 1 - Type 2 roadmap (Type 1 target Q2 2027) and ISO 27001 (Q1 2028). PIPEDA compliance is built in by default - Canadian data residency is on the roadmap for late 2026.
The honest answer: most SMB-tier alternatives are single-tool, USD-priced, and don't talk to each other. Vastura's moat is the integrated stack - Ledger feeds Pilot feeds Studio feeds Launch Pad through the MCP bridge, and CAD-pricing means no FX surcharge. We don't claim to beat every dedicated single-tool incumbent on every micro-feature, but we beat the total cost of running 6 separate USD SaaS subscriptions glued together with Zapier.
No. Onboarding is guided - connect your bank or Shopify, walk through the entity wizard, and you're posting transactions or running storefronts within the first 30 minutes. The optional MCP layer (for AI agent operation) does benefit from a technical user, but the dashboard, reports, and day-to-day workflow are designed for the operator-without-an-IT-department.
Upgrades are prorated and instant - switch from Starter to Pro and you only pay the difference for the remaining days in the cycle. Downgrades take effect at the next renewal so you keep what you paid for. The Conductor agent can also recommend tier changes based on actual usage patterns at the Pro tier and above.
Yes - annual billing is 25% off the monthly rate, applied across every tier and every product. Registered Canadian non-profits and charities can apply for an additional 20% discount (contact support with your CRA registration number). Bundle suites (Ops / Ecomm / Pro / Enterprise) include built-in discounts on top of that.