Guide: Statutory holiday pay

There are three statutory pay calculation methods available in Wagepoint:

1. Manual calculation
   

   Statutory holidays are tracked and calculated outside of Wagepoint. You can still add statutory holiday pay to payroll manually using an income code.

2. Daily wage method
   

   This method calculates statutory holiday pay for hourly employees by using their hourly rate multiplied by the assigned hours for the holiday. Statutory holidays are pre-loaded in the Company Settings based on the employee’s work location and you can edit the number of assigned hours for each holiday.

3. Federal calculation method
   

   This method is for federally-regulated industries/workplaces that fall under the Canada Labour Code. This method uses 1/20th of wages earned in the four weeks immediately before the holiday. Applicable holidays will be assigned according to the employee’s work location.

Review or change statutory holiday pay method

By default, your Wagepoint account is set to Manual calculation. If you'd like to change the calculation method, follow the steps below.

Changing your statutory holiday pay method may impact payrolls in progress.

1. In the navigation bar, go to Settings.
2. Under Payroll settings, select Statutory Holidays.
3. Review your current statutory holiday calculation method.
4. To change your statutory holiday calculation method, click Change method.
5. Select your preferred method.
6. Click Save to confirm your selection.

Review and edit number of hours for holidays in the daily wage statutory holiday pay method

If you use the daily wage statutory holiday pay method, you can also edit the number of hours for each pre-loaded holiday by following the steps below. For any holidays you do not wish to observe, simply set the number of hours to zero.

1. In the navigation bar, go to Settings.
2. Under Payroll settings, select Statutory Holidays.
3. Review your statutory holiday pay calculation method. If your current method is not the daily wage method, click Change method, select Daily wage method, and click Save.
4. Under Holidays, locate the statutory holiday you wish to edit and click Edit hours.
5. In the Edit hours window, make the necessary changes under Daily hours for holiday.
6. Click Save.

FAQs: Statutory holiday pay

• For most employees in Canada, statutory holiday pay is calculated using 1/20th (5%) of the wages earned in the 4 week period preceding the holiday. The eligible earnings used in this calculation vary by jurisdiction and are based on the legislation set out by the Labour Program/Ministry of Labour for the local jurisdiction under which the employee’s work is governed.
  
  For more details, check out this article about earnings eligible for statutory holiday pay.
• The specific rules and regulations regarding statutory holiday pay are complex!
  
  Check out this article about how statutory pay calculations work (it has examples!), and be sure to consult the relevant Labour Program/Ministry of Labour to ensure compliance.
• When your processing date is on or near a statutory holiday, you will need to adjust when you submit your payroll to ensure it is approved and finalized in enough time to maintain your usual pay date.
  
  For example, imagine you typically process payroll before 12PM ET on Fridays for a pay date the following Wednesday. The Canada day long weekend is coming up, however. If you process Friday as usual, then your pay date will be three business days later - the following Thursday.
  
  But you'd like to keep your pay date on Wednesday. So, to account for one less business day (due to the holiday), you need to process on Thursday to maintain your Wednesday pay date.
  
  We recommend you check our Holiday Processing schedule each year to see if any holiday impacts your payrolls and schedule reminders in your calendar so you're on top of any necessary changes in your payroll routine.
• In order to use the federal calculation method, you must have run 4 weeks of payroll in Wagepoint 2.0. Until four weeks have passed, you will need to either calculate statutory holiday manually or use the Daily Wage method.