If T4A season always feels like it sneaks up on you, the problem probably isn’t February—it’s November and December.
Most of the stress in January and right before the filing deadline comes from work that could have been started (or even finished) earlier. Planning your T4A season in late fall doesn’t mean doing everything months ahead; it means laying the groundwork so the busy months are calmer, shorter, and more controlled.
Here’s how to use November and December to set yourself up for a smoother T4A season.
1. Decide who “owns” T4A season
Before you touch a spreadsheet or run a report, answer a simple but powerful question: **who is actually responsible for this process?**
In many organizations, T4As fall into a gap between payroll, bookkeeping, and operations. That leads to:
– Confusion about who should do what
– Missed deadlines because everyone thought someone else was handling it
– Last-minute scrambles when someone finally “remembers” T4As
In November:
– Assign a **T4A lead** – one person ultimately accountable for making sure slips go out accurately and on time.
– Clarify supporting roles – for example, who pulls payment reports, who chases missing contractor info, who reviews totals, who presses “file.”
– Block time in calendars – schedule key work blocks in January and early February now, before calendars fill up.
A clear owner turns T4A season from a vague obligation into a defined project.
2. Build your contractor universe for the year
November is the perfect time to answer: **“Who did we actually pay as contractors this year?”**
Instead of waiting for January, you can start a preliminary contractor list by:
– Running a year-to-date report of accounts used for contractor or professional fees
– Pulling a list of vendors labeled as contractors, referees, coaches, freelancers, or service providers
– Asking department heads or managers: “Who have you paid as a non-employee this year?”
From there, create a **draft contractor universe** that includes:
– Legal name or business name
– Contact person (if applicable)
– Email and mailing address (if you have them)
– Whether you expect them to need a T4A based on your accountant’s guidance
You don’t need perfection yet. The goal is to avoid nasty surprises in January like, “Oh, we forgot about that entire group of contractors.”
3. Check your data quality while there’s still time to fix it
Once you have a draft list, November and December are ideal for a **data quality scan**. Ask:
– Do we have complete addresses for each contractor?
– Do we have SINs or business numbers where required?
– Are there obvious duplicates (for example, “ABC Consulting” and “ABC Consulting Inc.”)?
This is where a tool like **T4ASlip** can help by tracking which contractor records are missing key fields and showing gaps at a glance instead of relying on memory or manual notes.
In November and December, you can:
– Send gentle, non-urgent emails to contractors asking them to confirm or update their details
– Fix obvious duplicates and spelling errors
– Standardize naming conventions (for example, always using legal names)
By January, that means fewer “We still don’t have their SIN” crises.
4. Map your internal deadlines backwards from CRA’s
You can’t move CRA’s deadlines—but you *can* move your own.
In November, grab a calendar and work backwards:
– CRA filing deadline for T4As: mark it clearly.
– Internal “slips ready for review” date: 1–2 weeks before the CRA deadline.
– “All contractor details collected” date: 2–4 weeks before that.
– “Payment totals finalized” date: shortly after year-end close.
This becomes your **T4A season timeline**. Share it with:
– Your finance or admin team
– Your external accountant, if you have one
– Any department heads who regularly work with contractors
The goal is that when January starts, everyone already knows what’s coming and when—not just “sometime in February we’ll deal with T4As.”
5. Clean up your accounting and coding habits
T4A headaches often start long before slips are generated. If contractor payments are coded inconsistently, you’ll spend January sorting them out.
In November/December, you can:
– Review which accounts are being used for contractor payments
– Agree on **one or two standard accounts** (for example, “Contractor fees,” “Refereeing fees”) and stop using random catch-all accounts
– Document simple rules:
– “All payments to freelance designers go to this account.”
– “All referee payments go to that account.”
If you use T4ASlip, clean coding helps the tool group and summarize payments by contractor more accurately, with fewer exceptions to fix.
6. Draft communication templates before you need them
January emails written under pressure tend to be rushed and unclear. When you prepare in November/December, you can draft calm, friendly messages you’ll reuse every year.
Create templates for:
– **Contractors:**
– “We’re preparing our year-end tax reporting and may need to issue you a T4A slip. Please confirm your details by [date].”
– **Internal managers:**
– “Here’s the list of contractors your department engaged this year. Please confirm if anyone is missing.”
Save them in your T4A playbook or knowledge base. When January hits, you’re clicking “send,” not drafting from scratch.
7. Choose and configure your tools
If you’re planning or considering T4A automation, November/December is the calmest time to:
– Compare tools (like T4ASlip)
– Set up integrations with your accounting system
– Import a small batch of contractor data to test your workflow
– Train your team on the basics
Trying to implement a new tool during the January crunch is possible—but stressful. Even a light setup ahead of time will pay off when you’re actually under deadline.
8. Capture this year’s lessons before you forget
If you just survived a rough T4A season, November/December is when the pain is still fresh enough to remember, but far enough away that you can think clearly.
Take an hour to ask:
– What was the most stressful part of T4A season last year?
– Where did we lose the most time?
– What tripped us up that we *could* have fixed earlier?
Turn the answers into 3–5 concrete actions to take before year-end. For example:
– “We will collect contractor SINs at onboarding, not in February.”
– “We will stop tracking T4A info in three different spreadsheets.”
– “We will set a hard internal deadline one month before CRA’s.”
Where T4ASlip fits into your November/December planning
Planning isn’t just meetings and sticky notes—it’s about giving yourself better tools and data for the busy period ahead.
With T4ASlip in place, you can:
– Import and clean contractor data before year-end
– See exactly which records are missing key information
– Test how your accounting exports flow into T4A-ready summaries
– Build a repeatable process that you’ll reuse year after year
By the time January arrives, you’re not asking “Where do we start?” You’re simply following a plan you already designed.
A couple of hours in November/December can easily save you days of chaos later—and make T4A season feel like just another well-managed project, not a yearly fire drill.