Money laundering is big business in Canada.

In a recent report, the Criminal Intelligence Service estimated that between $45 billion and $113 billion is laundered through the country every year. As some analysts have noted, part of the reason for those big numbers is that Canada’s anti-money-laundering laws haven’t been that strong compared with other western nations. But that’s changing.

Last year, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) announced new anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing requirements. For Money Service Businesses like Telpay, these new rules mean that we have to ensure we know who our clients are. In accordance with these requirements, Telpay has been requesting personal information of primary users and signing officers, such as their date of birth and home address.

We know there are lots of questions about this. Why are we collecting this information? What are we going to do with it? What is a beneficial owner? Let’s get to some answers.

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The setup process can be difficult for you as an employer. It can get complicated when you have to consider regulatory duties that may affect your business and result in penalties if it’s not set up correctly.

A payroll must include employee information, hours they’ve worked, what their salaries are, and tax deductions. Not to mention, any voluntary deductions such as charitable donations or any other optional internal deductions, must be included.

If you’re new to payroll and worried about what vital information you need to ensure everything runs smoothly, we’ve compiled a checklist to help you get started.

If there was any doubt about how common electronic funds transfers (EFTs) and credit cards have become for Canadian businesses, a recent Payments Canada report put it to rest. In 2020, EFTs made up 25% of total business payment value in this country, while credit cards accounted for 24%.   

That credit card number in particular was unheard of just five years previous. But as that Payments Canada report suggests, there have been four key drivers of credit card usage among businesses recently: payment acceptance, rewards, perceived convenience, and easier control of payments.

It’s no secret that money is a huge contributor of stress to people, and tax season just seems to shine a great big spotlight on the issue. Money takes center stage at tax time, even if you’ve been able to brush it under the rug up until this point. This stress is multiplied significantly if you are an Accountant or Bookkeeper.

Accountants Tally Up the Stress

Does tax season mean late nights in the office followed by a McDonald’s run? As deadlines approach, do you start to develop a twitch in one eye? These are signs that you may need to take steps to manage your stress.

In 1985, William Loewen had grown Comcheq to a national company with 22 branches stretching out across Canada. At the time, Canadians living remotely didn’t have a way to make their bill payments in a timely fashion. Bill payments weren’t available by phone and the internet didn’t exist so people had to mail cheques to their creditors; a slow process indeed.

Bill recognized the need for a better way to pay and thus, Telpay was born. This innovative, new technology gave Canadians the option to pay their bills quickly, conveniently, and in a way which they had never imagined possible; by phone. By 2004, Telpay had grown from telephone payments to electronic payments and continued to evolve into the all-in-one payment system it is today.