Year-end child care receipts (CRA)

Your Business Number, generating a tax year's receipts, what's counted and what's left out, and how families download them.

For directors and admins at Canadian centres

What the receipts are

Families in Canada claim child care costs with CRA Form T778 and keep a receipt from the provider for each child. RoundUp builds those receipts from the payments recorded against your invoices: one PDF for each child and each person who paid, for a tax year, issued in your centre's name. RoundUp's name doesn't appear on them.

At a Canadian centre they take the place of the US year-end tax statement, which isn't produced for Canadian centres.

Before you start

Your centre's country must be Canada. The receipts card only appears once it is. See Setting up a Canadian centre.
You need billing access. Generating receipts needs permission to manage billing, which directors and admins have. Staff without billing access can't see the receipts.
Record every payment first. Receipts are built from payments recorded against invoices in RoundUp, including cash and cheques you record by hand. A payment that isn't recorded isn't on any receipt.

Your Business Number

In the app, open Payments → Settings and find Child care receipts (CRA). Under Provider identification, choose how your centre is identified:

Business: enter your CRA Business Number and tap Save. It's printed on every receipt. You can also enter it in the director portal, under Settings → Center profile → CRA Business Number.
Individual provider: CRA asks an individual provider for their Social Insurance Number on each receipt. RoundUp never stores SINs, so each receipt has a blank line for it, to fill in by hand, then sign and date.

A Business Number is nine digits, optionally followed by a two-letter program identifier and a four-digit reference, such as 123456789RC0001. Spaces and hyphens are fine. Anything else is refused.

Without a Business Number the card says Not set — receipts will print a blank for the Business Number. After you save one, the card says Saved. Regenerate receipts to print the change. Receipts already generated keep what they printed until you generate them again.

Generating a tax year

Open the card In the app, open Payments → Settings → Child care receipts (CRA). Receipts are generated in the app; the director portal only holds the Business Number.
Enter the year Under Generate receipts, type the tax year. It starts on last year, and takes any year from 2020 to this one.
Generate Tap Generate and the year, for example Generate 2025.
Read the result A line shows how many receipts were made and their total. Any warnings show in red underneath, and each receipt is listed with the child, the amount and who it's made out to.

RoundUp doesn't generate receipts on a schedule and doesn't email them. Generate the year when you're ready, then let families know their receipts are in the app.

Warnings

No CRA Business Number on file - receipts print a blank for it. Add it under Billing settings and regenerate.
Individual provider: each receipt has a blank for your Social Insurance Number. Fill it in by hand and sign before giving it to the family.
Some split-household payments are not attributed to a payer and are on no receipt. Record who paid them, then regenerate. These are payments on a split invoice that don't say which payer made them.

What's counted

Payments count in the year they were paid, by your centre's local date, not the month the care was for. December's tuition paid on January 3 is on the next year's receipt.
Refunds come off. A refund of a payment taken through RoundUp comes off the receipt for the year that payment was made, even if the refund happens the following year, once you generate that year again. Other refunds come off the year they were made.
Subsidy payments are left out. Money paid by a subsidy program wasn't paid by the family.
Payments on voided invoices are left out.
Split invoices. Each payer gets their own receipt for what they paid. A share paid by an organization, such as an employer or an agency, is left out.
Other invoices are made out to the family's primary guardian, the family's main contact. RoundUp doesn't record which guardian's card paid.
One receipt per child. A per-child invoice belongs to that child. A combined family invoice covering several children is divided between the children it names (or all the family's children, if it names none) in proportion to their tuition rates, or evenly when rates aren't set. Those receipts say so, and your list shows shared family invoice, apportioned.
A child and payer whose payments for the year come to nothing after refunds get no receipt.

What's on a receipt

The heading Child Care Expense Receipt, the tax year and a receipt number.
Your centre's name, address, phone and email, and your Business Number. With no Business Number on file there's a blank to fill in; an individual provider gets a blank line for their SIN.
The person who paid, the child, and the period of care.
The total received in the year, net of refunds and without government subsidies, followed by each payment and refund with its date.
Lines for an authorized signature and the date signed, and the date it was issued.
Your centre's logo and colour, if you've set them.

How families get them

Each parent sees only the receipts made out to them: in the app under Payments → Settings, and in the family portal under Payments & receipts → Tax receipts. A second guardian doesn't see receipts made out to the family's main contact, and in a split household neither payer sees the other's.

Families can download a receipt as soon as it's generated. If you're an individual provider, or your receipts need a signature, give families the completed, signed copy yourself as well.

You can download any receipt from the list on the card with Download PDF.

Generating again

Generating a year again is safe. It replaces that year's receipts with up-to-date ones, and a child's receipt from the same payer keeps its receipt number. Generate again after you add your Business Number, record a late payment or refund, or fix who paid on a split invoice.

If a receipt from an earlier run isn't produced this time, say because the payment was refunded in full, families stop seeing it and the result line counts it as an earlier receipt replaced. RoundUp keeps it in your centre's records.

Questions

Can I still get the US year-end statement?

No. A centre whose country is Canada issues CRA receipts only.

What about Quebec's RL-24?

RoundUp doesn't produce the RL-24 slip. The receipt tells Quebec residents that the RL-24 is issued separately.

Is this tax advice?

No. RoundUp works out what was paid and prints it. What a family can claim is between them and the Canada Revenue Agency.

More: All director guides