GST, HST, PST & QST for Canadian Businesses
Kantivo was built to make Canadian tax bookkeeping painless — select your province once and every invoice books the right taxes to the right agencies.
How It Works
Depending on where you operate in Canada, you may collect one tax or two:
- Federal GST at 5%, owed to the Canada Revenue Agency
- HST (13–15%), the harmonized tax that replaces GST+PST in Ontario and Atlantic Canada — one CRA remittance
- A separate provincial tax — PST in BC and Saskatchewan, RST in Manitoba, QST in Quebec — owed to your provincial tax authority
Where accounting software usually falls down is the two-tax provinces: a single sale generates liabilities to two different governments. Kantivo's answer is the tax code — a bundle of one or more tax components where every component carries its own rate and its own payable account. Choose the code; Kantivo does the bookkeeping.
Setting Up in One Click
Open Settings → Sales Tax Codes and press the 🍁 Add Canadian Tax Codes button. Kantivo instantly creates:
- A ready-to-use tax code for every province and territory
- The liability accounts behind them: GST/HST Payable, PST Payable, RST Payable, and QST Payable
Pressing the button again later is harmless — existing codes are skipped, never duplicated.
Rates by Province
| Where you sell | What's charged | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Alberta, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon | 5% GST | 5% |
| Ontario | 13% HST | 13% |
| Nova Scotia | 14% HST | 14% |
| New Brunswick, Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island | 15% HST | 15% |
| British Columbia | 5% GST + 7% PST | 12% |
| Saskatchewan | 5% GST + 6% PST | 11% |
| Manitoba | 5% GST + 7% RST | 12% |
| Quebec | 5% GST + 9.975% QST | 14.975% |
A zero-rated (0%) code is included as well for exempt supplies. Every rate is editable, so provincial changes take one edit — never a software update.
Invoicing with a Tax Code
On any invoice or estimate, the totals panel has a Tax Code dropdown. Select your province's code and the combined rate is applied automatically (the rate box locks to show the code is in control). Everything else about invoicing stays the same.
Two details worth knowing:
- Estimates remember their tax code, so converting an accepted quote into an invoice — even a percentage-based progress invoice — keeps the provincial treatment intact.
- The dropdown's "None (manual rate)" option keeps the classic behavior: type any flat percentage yourself.
How the Split Is Booked
Kantivo's double-entry engine posts each component of the tax to its own account. Here's the journal for a $2,500 job billed in Saskatchewan (GST 5% + PST 6%):
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts Receivable | $2,775.00 | |
| Service Income | $2,500.00 | |
| GST/HST Payable | $125.00 | |
| PST Payable | $150.00 |
Fractional rates round penny-perfectly — the last component absorbs the rounding difference so every journal entry balances exactly. Quebec's 9.975% QST is handled without a hitch.
Input Tax Credits on Purchases
Here's the part most bookkeeping tools miss: the GST, HST, or QST you pay on your own supplier bills usually comes back to you at filing time as an Input Tax Credit. Kantivo books it that way automatically — choose a tax code on the bill and each component lands where it belongs:
- Recoverable taxes (GST/HST/QST) build up in a Paid (ITC) asset account — a receivable from the government, not a cost
- Non-recoverable taxes (PST/RST) hit Sales Tax Expense, because that money is genuinely spent
So a $2,000 equipment purchase in Manitoba (GST 5% + RST 7%) records $100 as an ITC you'll claim back and $140 as expense.
Filing Time
Open Reports → Sales Tax and the Tax Liability by Agency table does the return math for you over any date range:
- Tax Collected per agency (CRA, your province, Revenu Québec)
- minus Input Tax Credits claimed on purchases
- equals Net Owing — the figure for your GST/HST or provincial return
Record each remittance payment against its payable account and the balance rolls forward cleanly.
Build Your Own Codes
The same machinery works anywhere taxes stack. In Settings → Sales Tax Codes → Add Tax Code, define a code with any number of components — each with a name, a rate, and a payable account (leave it blank and Kantivo creates the account for you). Think state + county + city sales tax in the US, or a lodging levy layered on a state rate.
Common Questions
Can my books be in Canadian dollars?
Yes — set CAD as your company's base currency. Kantivo's multi-currency support covers your cross-border customers too.
Do my old invoices change?
No. Anything created before you adopt tax codes — or without one selected — posts exactly the way it always did.
I only charge HST. Is any of this extra work?
None. Your provincial code has a single component, the full amount lands in GST/HST Payable, and your CRA filing is one number.
What if a rate changes?
Edit the component's rate in Settings. Future invoices pick it up; posted history is preserved at the old rate.
Does this cost extra?
No — tax codes are included in every Kantivo plan.