NorthOffice

Methodology

NorthOffice pages are desk research. They are not lab reviews, and they are not “we ran payroll on this for six months.”

Updated 6 September 2026.

Sources

Each product guide is built from:

  • the vendor’s current Canadian marketing and pricing pages
  • vendor help centres when they document GST/HST, T4, Interac, or CRA filing
  • CRA and Service Canada pages for GST/HST registration, invoice information, CPP, CPP2, EI, T4, and ROE
  • published Canadian feature lists when the pricing page is incomplete

Checked against public vendor and CRA pages, 29 August 2026. If a price could not be verified on a public page, the article says so instead of guessing.

What I do not do

  • I do not present US list prices as Canadian prices.
  • I do not invent Interac or Visa rates.
  • I do not claim I tested a product in a store, café, or shop unless I did — and for this site, I did not.
  • I do not invent traffic or earnings figures.

What “best” means

Best fit for a Canadian sole proprietor or small incorporated company with a particular job: invoicing clients in Ontario, running a till that must take Interac, or paying staff with CPP and EI remitted to the CRA. It is not a numeric score and it is not “#1 in Canada” as a marketing slogan.

A product can appear because it is widely used in Canada even if I have not used it. That is stated in the voice of the page.

Update cadence

Prices and CRA tables change. The aim is to revisit money pages when a vendor’s public CAD price or a CRA rate changes, and at least to re-check the published guides on a quarterly cadence after launch. The on-page “last updated” date is the research date for that version.

Conflict of interest

Later, some vendor links may become affiliate links. That creates a financial incentive to mention products that pay. Mitigations:

  • Wave stays in the invoicing guide with no affiliate. A free option that does not pay is still the right first recommendation for many sole props.
  • HubSpot’s free CRM and Starter are described as non-paying. The commercial interest is paid HubSpot, and the page says that.
  • Wagepoint can be mentioned as a payroll product without being a v1 affiliate target.
  • Every money page carries a disclosure. See the affiliate disclosure.

Corrections

If you have a public URL that contradicts a table, use the contact page once mail is live. I would rather correct a dated price than defend it.