How to price interlock jobs in six steps

1. Pull last season's finished jobs and sort them by type.
2. Break each job into lines, each with its own unit.
3. Price labour by the crew-day at a loaded rate.
4. Add overhead and price to a target margin, not a markup.
5. Add adders for steps, cuts, access, haul, removal, locates and permits.
6. Protect the quote with a validity period and written price-change terms.

Winter is the time to do this, before 2027 quotes go out. The method below works on paper or in a spreadsheet. Near the end there's a price sheet template and a checklist to run before every quote.

Why does one per-square-foot number get you in trouble?

Most crews start with one number. It worked on a few backyard patios years ago and became the rate for everything. The trouble shows up on a driveway.

You quote a driveway off your patio rate. A driveway carries vehicles, so it needs a deeper dig and more base underneath. That means more loads out, more aggregate in, more compaction time and maybe a second bin. The pavers on top cost about the same per square foot. Everything under them doesn't. The job looks fine on paper and closes well under the margin you wanted.

Small jobs have the opposite problem. On a 90 sq ft walkway repair, your fixed costs (getting the crew there, delivery, the compactor) are spread over very few square feet. Add a tight backyard where every paver goes in by wheelbarrow, and one rate can't be right for all three.

Step 1: Pull last season's finished jobs

Your best price list is the work you've already done. Over the winter, pull last season's finished jobs and sort them by type:

For each job, note the square footage (linear feet for walls and borders), crew-days, materials, equipment, disposal, delivery and the final price. Then work out actual cost per square foot for each job type.

Expect the numbers to differ by type; that's the reason to keep separate rates. If your records are thin, start with the jobs you remember best. Our guide to job costing for contractors covers the cost buckets to track from now on.

Step 2: Break the job into lines

A per-square-foot rate hides the parts of the job that change. Lines show them. For a typical install, give each of these its own line with its own unit: dig-out and disposal (loads or bins), base aggregate (tonnes), bedding layer, pavers (square feet, with a waste allowance for cuts), border (linear feet), edge restraint (linear feet), joint sand, compaction and other equipment (days) and delivery (loads).

To get base tonnes: area in square feet × base depth in inches ÷ 12 gives cubic feet. Divide by 27 for cubic yards, then multiply by the tonnes per cubic yard your supplier gives for that aggregate, and ask whether that figure allows for compaction. Do the same for the dig-out to count loads or bins.

Lines pay off three ways. A cheaper option shows exactly what changes. Extra driveway base shows up as its own line instead of a silent cut to your margin. And at closeout you can see which line went over.

Step 3: Price labour by the crew-day

Labour is where guesses do the most damage. Price it in crew-days: how many days your crew will be on site, times what a crew-day actually costs you.

Work out a loaded crew-day cost

A loaded crew-day is every wage on the crew for one day, plus what you pay on top of wages. That includes your employer share of CPP and EI. The CRA says that for CPP contributions "the employer and employee portions are the same," and that for EI "the employer portion is generally 1.4 times the employee portion" (CRA: CPP and EI responsibilities).

It also includes WSIB, where each business pays a rate per $100 of insurable earnings that depends on its class and its own claims experience (WSIB: 2027 premium rates). Add vacation pay, public holiday pay, benefits and anything else you pay per person per day. These costs change every year, so ask your bookkeeper or accountant to confirm your loaded rate per person.

Get crew-days from your own history

How many square feet a crew lays in a day depends on your crew, the paver, the pattern and the site, so don't borrow a production rate from the internet. Use the crew-days from Step 1 for each job type. Price dig-and-base days and laying days separately; they often use a different crew and equipment.

Step 4: Add overhead and price to a target margin

Overhead is everything that doesn't belong to one job: the yard, insurance, trucks between jobs, the office, software, your evenings spent quoting. Divide last year's overhead by last year's revenue. That share has to come out of every job's price. Your target gross margin has to be bigger than that share, or the job loses money once overhead is paid.

Then price to a margin, not a markup. Markup is a percentage added on top of cost; margin is the percentage of the price you keep. Mixing them up is a quiet way to underprice every job.

The formula: price = direct cost ÷ (1 − target margin). For a 35% margin, divide cost by 0.65.

A worked example

Example numbers, not industry averages. A patio costs $6,500 direct: three crew-days for a small crew at a loaded $1,000 a day ($3,000), materials ($2,500), and equipment, disposal and delivery ($1,000). Overhead is 10% of revenue, and the target gross margin is 35%.

Same job, same costs, and the markup version leaves about $1,100 less. Set your own target margin; the 35% here is not a recommendation.

Step 5: Build adders for what changes the job

Adders price the conditions that add time or material. Keep them on your price sheet so you aren't inventing them at every site walk:

• Steps and walls: priced per step or per linear foot, never folded into the square-foot rate.
• Curves and heavy cuts: more saw time and more waste.
• Tight access or hand-carry: no machine access means more crew time per square foot.
• Long haul: distance to the site, and to wherever the dig-out goes.
• Removal: old concrete, asphalt or pavers coming out, priced by the load or bin.
• Locates and permits: lead time, paperwork and fees before dig day, including boulevard permits on driveways (see below).

Locate and permit lead times in Ontario

Ontario One Call now operates as Ontario Dig Authority. Its site says to submit a locate request at least 5 business days before you dig, and that locates are free and required by law (Ontario Dig Authority). Those public locates don't cover everything. The site says private lines on the property, such as gas lines to BBQs or pool heaters and electrical lines to sheds, detached garages or lights, are not included in the public locate process and need a separate private locate (Ontario Dig Authority: homeowners). Ask the homeowner what runs under the yard, give a private locate its own line where one is needed, and build both into the start date you promise.

Permits depend on the municipality and the work. The City of Toronto's building permits page says a permit is needed for "most construction, demolition, additions, or major renovations." That is an example of where to look, not a rule for hardscape. Even a plain driveway can need a permit. In Toronto, you need a street work permit from Transportation Services before you build, rebuild or repave a driveway or walkway that crosses City property such as the boulevard, sidewalk or curb (City of Toronto: driveway and walkway permits on City property), and widening a driveway can bring in zoning and front-yard parking rules. Toronto also needs a building permit for a retaining wall more than one metre high on or next to public property or a building entrance, or on private property open to the public (City of Toronto: when do I need a building permit). Check your own municipality before quoting any driveway, boulevard, grading or wall work, and give any permit or drawing its own line.

Step 6: Protect the quote from material price changes

A quote written in November is often installed in May, and supplier prices can change in between. Put a validity period on the quote, long enough for the customer to decide and short enough that your costs haven't moved. For jobs booked months ahead, decide in writing what happens if supplier prices change before the job is scheduled. If you quote homeowners in Ontario, that wording has limits. When an estimate is part of a renovation contract, Ontario says the final price can't be more than 10% over the estimate unless the customer agrees to new work or a new price (Ontario: your rights when starting home renovations or repairs). Write your price-change wording so the customer agrees in writing to any change before work starts, and have a lawyer who knows Ontario consumer protection rules review it before you use it. Check your supplier's current price sheet before winter quoting rather than guessing at the market.

A price sheet template you can copy

Copy this into a spreadsheet and fill in the cost and price columns from your Step 1 numbers. If your driveway and patio rates differ, keep a version for each.

Presenting the price: options, HST and payment schedule

Put options side by side

Show a standard paver and a premium option on the same quote. Because the job is in lines, only the paver line and the total change.

Show HST on its own line

In Ontario, the HST rate is 13% (CRA: GST/HST rates by province). If you're registered for GST/HST, show it as a separate line for each option, so the customer sees the real total. If you're unsure whether you need to register, or how HST applies to a deposit or a discount, ask your accountant.

Write the payment schedule on the quote

Tie payments to stages the customer can see: a deposit at booking, a payment when the base is done, the balance at completion. Then the invoice matches the quote.

Check Ontario's rules before you set your standard schedule. If the homeowner signs a renovation or repair contract of $50 or more at their home, they get a 10-day cooling-off period to cancel (Ontario: home renovation rights), and Ontario's guide for renovation businesses says any deposit has to be refunded within 15 days of their cancellation notice (Ontario: guide for home renovation businesses). The same consumer page tells homeowners to keep down payments to a minimum, and recommends no more than 10%. Ontario's Construction Act also has holdback and lien rules: a payer on a contract where a lien can arise holds back 10% of the price as work is supplied, until lien rights expire. Ask a lawyer how these rules apply to your homeowner jobs, your deposit and your start date.

Put the warranty in writing

Settling calls happen, sometimes two summers later. Write what's covered and for how long. Keep photos of the base depth and compaction, and a note of who was on the crew, with the job. Homeowners keep certain legal rights however your warranty is worded, so have your lawyer check any exclusions once.

Checklist: before you send an interlock quote

• Job type set, and that type's rates used
• Dig-out depth and base matched to the job type
• Disposal, equipment and delivery on their own lines
• Crew-days from similar past jobs, at your loaded rate
• Adders in for access, cuts, curves, removal and haul
• Price set to your target margin, not a markup
• Locate and permit lead time in the start date
• Private locate priced where private lines may run
• HST shown as its own line for each option
• Validity period, and price-change wording your lawyer has checked
• Payment schedule and warranty terms on the quote, checked once with your lawyer

Checked against the CRA, WSIB, Ontario Dig Authority, City of Toronto and Government of Ontario pages linked above, and the text of Ontario's Construction Act, on November 11, 2026. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; confirm with your accountant or lawyer.

How voice-to-quote and Bid Advisor check a quote against past jobs

NexusCRM by NexusAI GTA was built inside Reformity Inc., its founder's own GTA general contractor (not an arm's-length customer), which started in fencing and landscaping. In NexusCRM Pro, voice-to-quote lets you record the site walk on your phone. NexusCRM transcribes it, matches the customer and drafts a priced quote from your own past quotes, and lines under your historical low get flagged. The AI Bid Advisor then checks the quote's margin against your price sheets and up to 25 similar completed jobs, so you see a thin margin before you send it. You review every draft before it goes out.

When the customer accepts online, the invoice, the job, the schedule and the crew notice happen without retyping. Receipt capture turns a photographed receipt into itemized expenses on the job's P&L. See how this fits interlock contractors and landscapers and hardscape crews.

AI is built into every plan. Voice-to-quote, Bid Advisor and receipt capture start on Pro. AI Caller is a separate add-on, billed by talk minute. The AI Caller is in early access.

See a site walk turn into a quote

To see a site walk turned into a priced quote, book a 25-minute demo. We'll map your lead-to-invoice flow, walk it live including voice-to-quote, and give you a straight answer on fit. Or call (437) 241-6287.

Job costing fixes that. For a contractor it isn't complicated, and you can start this winter with last season's paperwork, a spreadsheet and a few evenings at the kitchen table. This guide covers the method, the labour and HST traps, a worked example, and when to check the numbers so you can still act on them.

What is job costing for contractors?

Job costing means tying every cost to the job it belongs to: loaded labour, materials, equipment and rentals, subcontractors, and delivery and disposal. Job revenue minus those costs is the job's gross profit. Gross profit divided by revenue is the margin. Office rent, insurance, trucks and your own admin time are overhead, tracked separately, and your margin is what pays for them.

The split matters. If you load overhead into one job and not the next, comparing them stops meaning anything. Keep job costs to what the job itself caused, and judge overhead against your total gross profit for the year.

The five cost buckets on every job

Almost every cost on a contracting job fits one of five buckets. Use the same five on every job, so you can compare a fence to a patio to a basement. Permit and drawing fees for a specific job are job costs too: give them their own line or put them under Subcontractors, the same way every time.

Labour

Every paid hour your crew spends on the job, at the loaded hourly cost (next section), not just the wage. Include paid time loading at the yard and driving from the yard to site. Whether a given stretch of travel counts as working time is an Employment Standards Act question, so check with your payroll provider if you're unsure.

Materials

Pavers, base, lumber, posts, concrete, fasteners, and the second trip to the supplier when the first order came up short.

Equipment and rentals

The plate compactor, the mini excavator, the saw you rented for two days. If you own the machine, charge the job a fair day rate for it, so owned equipment isn't free on paper.

Subcontractors

Excavation, electrical, the concrete pump: anyone you pay to do part of the work.

Delivery and disposal

Supplier delivery charges, bins, dump fees and haul-away.

What stays out: the office, the shop, insurance, truck payments, phones, software and the evenings you spend quoting. That is overhead. Your gross profit across all jobs has to cover it before the business makes any money.

How to work out true labour cost

Labour is the easiest bucket to cost too low, because the wage on the pay stub isn't what an hour of work costs you. The extra on top of the wage is often called labour burden. The formula:

Loaded hourly cost = hourly wage + employer CPP + employer EI + WSIB premium + vacation pay + public holiday pay

Each piece comes from an official rule, so take the figures from the source rather than from a rule of thumb.

Employer CPP and EI

For CPP, the CRA says the employer must contribute an amount equal to the CPP contributions deducted from the employee's pay (CRA: CPP contributions). For EI, the employer normally contributes 1.4 times the EI premiums deducted, or less if you're in the EI Premium Reduction Program (CRA: EI premiums). To get real numbers, run one typical week's pay through the CRA's payroll deductions online calculator. It shows the employee's CPP and EI, and your share follows from those.

WSIB premium

WSIB's method is to multiply your insurable earnings by your premium rate and divide by 100 (WSIB: how to calculate your premium). Your rate depends on your classification, and WSIB has published its 2027 premium rates. Use the rate on your own rate statement, not an average: your 2026 rate when you cost this year's jobs, and your 2027 rate when you price next season.

Vacation pay

Ontario's Employment Standards Act sets vacation pay at no less than 4% of gross wages (not counting vacation pay itself) for employees with under five years of employment, and at least 6% once they reach five years (Ontario: vacation under the ESA).

Public holiday pay

Ontario has nine public holidays under the Employment Standards Act (Ontario: public holidays under the ESA). Most employees are paid for those days without working them, so that pay is part of what an hour of work costs you. Two exceptions matter for contractors. A construction employee who is paid at least 7.7% of wages as vacation or holiday pay (9.7% after five years of employment) is exempt from the public holiday rules, so that one percentage covers both lines (Ontario: special rules for construction). Landscape gardeners are exempt from public holiday pay in any week when aesthetic landscaping is more than half their work; structural jobs such as retaining walls don't count toward that (Ontario: special rules for landscaping). Check which rules cover each person on your crew.

Add the pieces per hour and you have the loaded cost. Example numbers, not industry averages: if the wage is $29 an hour and employer CPP, EI, WSIB, vacation pay and public holiday pay add about $6 an hour, the loaded cost is $35. That $35 is the number every job should carry, not the $29.

Decide once where paid non-productive time goes: rain days at the yard, a morning loading the trailer, a callback to fix a settled paver. Spread it across jobs on a fair basis or carry it as overhead, but do it the same way every time, or your job-to-job comparisons drift.

Payroll rules have earnings limits, maximums and exceptions that this summary leaves out. Check your loaded rate with your accountant or payroll provider before you price from it.

Where HST goes (and doesn't)

In Ontario, HST is 13% (CRA: GST/HST rates). It passes through your books in both directions, and it skews margin if you mix it into job costs.

If your business is registered for GST/HST, the CRA lets you recover the GST/HST you paid on purchases and expenses for your commercial activities by claiming input tax credits (CRA: input tax credits). HST you get back isn't a cost of the job, so record materials, rentals and subcontractor invoices before the recoverable HST. Do the same on the revenue side: the HST you charge the customer isn't yours, so job revenue is the price before tax.

If you aren't registered, if you use the CRA's quick method (which generally doesn't allow input tax credits on operating expenses), or if a purchase doesn't qualify for an input tax credit, the HST you paid is a real cost and it stays in the job.

How much does it matter? In the example below, leaving HST in the materials line alone would take about 4 points off the margin. Pick one rule and keep to it on every job.

Input tax credit rules have conditions and exceptions. Confirm how they apply to your business with your accountant.

A worked example: one interlock patio

A backyard patio sold for $20,000 before HST. A four-person crew for four 10-hour days is 160 hours, at the $35 loaded rate from above.

Now say the base needed more digging than planned and the job ran six days instead of four. That is 240 hours, so labour becomes $8,400, total cost $17,400, gross profit $2,600 and margin 13%. Same price, same customer, less than half the profit, and the only line that moved was crew hours.

Markup vs margin in one minute

Margin is profit divided by price. Markup is profit divided by cost. They are different numbers, and pricing with one while aiming for the other costs you on every job.

Example numbers, not industry averages: a job costs you $14,000. Add a 30% markup and the price is $18,200. Profit is $4,200, and $4,200 ÷ $18,200 is a margin of about 23%, not 30%.

If you want a 30% margin, divide the cost by 0.70 instead: $14,000 ÷ 0.70 = $20,000. Set your target as a margin, then price from it.

When to check: at the quote, mid-job and at closeout

At the quote

Build the price from the five buckets and look at the margin before the quote goes out. A thin margin on paper leaves no room for a wet week or a short delivery.

Mid-job

Compare crew hours and materials so far against what the quote assumed. This is the check that pays, because the crew is still on site and you can still do something: tighten the schedule, raise a change order for the extra excavation, or catch the duplicate supplier run.

At closeout

Get the final number and write one line on why it differed from the quote. Over a season, those lines tell you more about your pricing than any formula.

If closeout is the only check you do, and it happens months later, you find out what went wrong when it's too late to fix it on that job.

Winter exercise: cost last season's 10 jobs

The slower months are a good time to do this once by hand. Pick 10 jobs from the 2026 season, a mix of job types and sizes, and work through them:

• Pull the final invoice for each job and write down the price before HST.
• Total the crew hours per job from timesheets, the crew group chat or your calendar, and multiply by your loaded hourly cost.
• Match supplier statements and receipts to jobs, net of recoverable HST if you claim input tax credits.
• Add rentals, subcontractor invoices, delivery, bins and dump fees.
• Work out gross profit and margin for each job.
• Rank the 10 jobs from best margin to worst.
• Look for the pattern: a job type, a crew, a customer type or a job size that keeps landing near the bottom.
• Write down what you'd change on next year's price sheet.

The ranking is the useful part. Carry what you learn into your 2027 prices; if you do hardscape, how to price interlock and hardscape jobs for 2027 picks up from here. You'll have the invoices and receipts out anyway, so work through the Ontario contractor year-end checklist at the same sitting.

Spreadsheet or software: what changes when it's live

A spreadsheet works. One tab per job, the five buckets as columns, a margin formula at the bottom. The catch is that someone has to keep it current every day from timesheets, receipts and supplier bills, or it turns back into a closeout-only number.

Here's how NexusCRM by NexusAI GTA handles it. On the Pro plan, each job has a live P&L. Labour and receipts land on the job, and receipt capture uses AI to turn a photo of a receipt into itemized expenses on that job's P&L, which you can check against the receipt. NexusCRM is HST-native, and you see the job's margin while the crew is still on site, not at year-end. The features page lists the rest.

Pro is $425/mo CAD plus a $5,500 one-time implementation, with unlimited users, on a 12-month initial term, then month-to-month (pricing). AI is built into every plan. Voice-to-quote, Bid Advisor and receipt capture start on Pro. AI Caller is a separate add-on, billed by talk minute. It is in early access, and job costing doesn't need it.

Checked against the linked CRA, WSIB and Government of Ontario pages on November 11, 2026. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; confirm with your accountant or lawyer.

Want to see a job's margin while the crew is still on site? Book a 25-minute demo at crm.nexusaigta.ca/contact.html or call (437) 241-6287. Bring a job you quoted this season (leave out the customer's name and address; the scope and numbers are enough). We'll map your lead-to-invoice flow, walk it through live and give you a straight answer on fit.

This checklist is for owner-run construction businesses in Ontario with a December 31 calendar year, people on payroll and subcontractors on the books. If your corporation has a different fiscal year-end, some dates below move with it.

Checked against CRA, WSIB, Government of Ontario and Legislative Assembly of Ontario pages on November 11, 2026. This is general information, not legal or tax advice; confirm with your accountant or lawyer.

Ontario contractor year-end dates at a glance

Payroll: T4 slips and the T4 Summary

CRA's page on when to file information returns says the T4 filing due date is "the last day of February after the preceding calendar year." For 2026 pay, that is the end of February 2027.

The last day of February 2027 is a Sunday. CRA says a return due on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday is on time if CRA receives it, or it is postmarked, by the next business day. Don't plan around that; finish slips the week before.

What to do in December: confirm every employee's address and social insurance number are on file and current. Match pay records to what was actually paid, including people who left mid-season. When someone stops working for you because of a layoff, retirement, resignation or dismissal, CRA suggests you work out their year-to-date earnings and give them a slip.

Subcontractors: T5018 slips

A T5018 is CRA's Statement of Contract Payments: the slip a construction business files to report what it paid each subcontractor for the period. CRA's T5018 page says businesses must report contract payments if more than 50% of their business income comes from construction activities. You report payments to Canadian-resident subcontractors when the total paid to that sub for the period is more than $500, not counting GST/HST. Payments for goods only are not reported.

The return is due six months after the end of the reporting period you chose, which can be the calendar year or your fiscal period. For a calendar-year filer, 2026 payments are due by June 30, 2027.

The deadline is far off. The paperwork is not. For each sub, CRA wants the business name and address, either their 15-character program account number or their SIN, and the total you paid. Treat every SIN, your crew's and your subs', as sensitive: collect it only for payroll and the slips, keep it where only you or your bookkeeper can see it, and never ask for one by text or in the crew group chat. The easiest time to get a missing business number is before you pay the sub's last invoice of the year, not in June when nobody is answering the phone.

WSIB: clearances, 2027 rates and reconciliation

Clearances

A WSIB clearance is a number WSIB issues to registered businesses that are up to date on premiums and reporting. It is valid for up to 90 days. If you hire subs, check that each one's clearance is current before they start, and check again on long jobs: one you checked in August has expired by December.

The reason it matters: under WSIB's construction clearance policy, if you hire a sub without a valid clearance, you may be liable for what that sub owes WSIB, up to the labour portion of the contract. A valid clearance relieves you of that liability for the period it covers. Ask WSIB or your accountant how that applies to your subs.

2027 premium rates

WSIB says 2027 rate statements are available only online, starting in November, through a WSIB online services account. Look yours up now. It is part of your loaded labour cost for next year, so it belongs in your 2027 price sheet before the first spring quote goes out.

Reconciliation

WSIB's reconciliation page says businesses that reported and paid premiums monthly, or closed an account during the year, must reconcile, and that reconciliations are due March 31 each year. If you report annually or quarterly, WSIB says you don't need to reconcile. Reconciling confirms you reported the right amount in premiums. Pull your 2026 insurable earnings by worker now, while the season is fresh, so March is a check rather than a dig.

HST: receipts and input tax credits

Ontario's HST rate is 13% (CRA's GST/HST rate page). If you are a GST/HST registrant, input tax credits (ITCs) let you recover the HST you paid on purchases and expenses used in your commercial activities.

The catch is paperwork. CRA says you need sufficient documentary evidence before you claim an ITC, and what counts depends on the amount. Every invoice or receipt needs the supplier's name, the invoice date and the total paid. From $100, it also needs the supplier's GST/HST registration number and the HST charged, or a note that the price includes HST. From $500, it also needs your name or business name, a brief description of what you bought and the payment terms. A faded till receipt for a $640 load of pavers that doesn't show the yard's GST/HST number or your business name may not meet that bar, so ask the yard for a proper invoice.

For most registrants, CRA allows four years to claim an ITC, so a receipt you missed this spring can usually still be claimed. CRA sets a two-year limit for listed financial institutions and some businesses over a $6 million threshold, so ask your accountant before you claim a missed ITC on a later return. In December, match every job's receipts to the reporting period they belong to, and chase missing invoices while suppliers still remember the order.

Construction Act: the holdback change coming in 2027

Holdback rules sit in Ontario's Construction Act. In an October 27, 2026 backgrounder, the Ontario government describes a holdback as the 10 per cent that contractors and subcontractors withhold from the cost of services or materials supplied on a project, so that enough money is available to pay any lien claims. The same document says that starting January 1, 2027, project owners will be required to release holdbacks annually on the anniversary date of each contract.

A DLA Piper summary of the amendments says the annual-release rules came into force on January 1, 2026, with transition rules: for contracts signed after that date, the first release follows the contract's first anniversary, and for older contracts it follows the second anniversary after January 1, 2026. Either way, the first required releases fall in 2027, and the rule mostly matters for contracts that run longer than a year.

That backgrounder also introduces the proposed Building Ontario Faster Act, 2026 (Bill 140). If passed, it would let the Attorney General make regulations allowing owners named in those regulations to release holdback for all their contracts on one date they choose, instead of each contract's anniversary. The province says the regulation would apply to Ministry of Transportation projects, and other public and private owners could ask to be included. As of this writing, Bill 140 has passed second reading and been sent to committee; it is a proposal, not law.

What to do now: list every open contract with its signing date, contract value and the holdback held or owed on both sides, meaning what you hold back from your subs and what your customer holds back from you. You need that list whichever version applies. How the rules apply to contracts signed before 2026, and to your own contracts, is a question for a construction lawyer.

Records: what to keep and for how long

CRA's record-keeping page says businesses generally must keep required records and supporting documents for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. They must be kept at your place of business or residence in Canada unless CRA gives you written permission otherwise, and CRA says records stored outside Canada but accessed electronically from inside Canada don't count as kept in Canada. If your records live in software, ask the vendor where the data is stored, and ask your accountant whether that setup works for you.

The practical version is one folder per job, paper or digital, holding the signed quote, change orders, invoices, receipts, crew hours and photos. When CRA, WSIB, a customer or a lawyer asks about a job from three years ago, you open one folder instead of four shoeboxes.

The job-by-job review that's yours to do

Everything above keeps you in good standing. None of it tells you whether 2026 was a good year, job by job. Block out one evening in December for four questions.

Which jobs made money?

For each finished job, take the invoiced revenue and subtract labour, materials, equipment, subs, delivery and disposal. Then rank the jobs by margin. Example numbers, not industry averages: a $20,000 patio with $15,000 in job costs made $5,000, a 25% margin. A $12,000 walkway that took twice the planned crew-days might have made $1,200, or 10%. Our job costing guide walks through the method on paper or in a spreadsheet.

Which quotes are still open?

Fall quotes go quiet in November. List every quote that went out but wasn't accepted, with the customer, the scope and the date, and put a January follow-up in the calendar. "Call me in spring" means nothing if nobody calls.

What will you charge in 2027?

Your 2027 WSIB rate, any raises for returning crew and this season's real job costs all feed next year's price sheet. For interlock and hardscape work, our guide to pricing interlock jobs builds rates from your own job history.

Who is coming back?

Know which crew members are returning in spring, at what rate, and which spots you need to fill.

The printable year-end checklist

• Payroll: confirm addresses and SINs, reconcile 2026 pay records and give slips to people who left. T4s are due the last day of February 2027 (CRA).
• Subs: collect business names, addresses and program account numbers or SINs, keep SINs where only you or your bookkeeper can see them, and total 2026 payments per sub. T5018 is due June 30, 2027 for calendar-year filers (CRA).
• WSIB clearances: check that every sub's clearance is current before they start; each is valid for up to 90 days, and without one you may be liable for what the sub owes WSIB (WSIB).
• WSIB rates and reconciliation: look up your 2027 rate statement and pull 2026 insurable earnings. Reconciliation is due March 31, 2027 if you reported monthly or closed an account in 2026 (WSIB).
• HST: match receipts to reporting periods, get proper invoices (the supplier's GST/HST number from $100; your name, a description and payment terms from $500) and list unclaimed ITCs (CRA).
• Holdback: list open contracts with signing dates and holdback on both sides, and ask a construction lawyer about 2027 (Ontario).
• Records: one folder per job, kept for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to (CRA).
• Business review: rank 2026 jobs by margin, list open quotes for January, update the 2027 price sheet and confirm returning crew.

Where our software fits, and where it doesn't

We make software, and this section and the closing one are about it. NexusCRM by NexusAI GTA is the CRM for contractor crews, built in Toronto.

When a customer accepts a quote online, the invoice, the job and the schedule follow from it without retyping, so the signed quote, the invoice and the job stay together. On Pro and Elite, labour and receipts land on each job's live P&L, and crew pay and commissions are worked out in the system, with four crew pay models: hourly, per-day, per-project and per-linear-foot. Every change is recorded in an audit log, and NexusCRM is HST-native.

Where the data lives: every client gets a dedicated private instance with its own database, and Canadian hosting is available, chosen at implementation. Our page on Canadian data residency explains the options. If you plan to keep records CRA asks you to hold in Canada in NexusCRM, raise it at implementation and confirm the setup with your accountant. You can export your full data at any time, and CRA's six-year clock is yours, not your software vendor's, so keep your own exports with your year-end records.

What it doesn't do: NexusCRM is not bookkeeping or tax software, and it does not file T4s, T5018s, WSIB reconciliations or HST returns. QuickBooks Online sync is on the roadmap, not live yet. Today, CSV exports hand the numbers to your bookkeeper or accountant. The features page has the full list.

Go into spring with everything in one place

Winter is when crews get set up. Implementation is a one-time fee and takes about two weeks for most businesses, and we do the work: your data migrated, your workflow configured, your team trained (what implementation covers). To see quotes, jobs and crew hours in one system, with receipts on each job's P&L on Pro and Elite, book a 25-minute demo or call (437) 241-6287. We'll map your lead-to-invoice flow, walk it live and give you a straight answer on fit.