Do I need to register for PST in another province

GST/HST is one registration that covers the whole country. The provincial sales taxes are not. British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba each run their own tax, with their own registration, their own rules and their own filing schedule, and Quebec's QST is separate again. Selling into a province can create an obligation there even if you have never set foot in it.

Where the lines are

Each province publishes its own rule for a business located outside it:

• Saskatchewan sets no threshold at all. A business making retail sales into Saskatchewan is required to be licensed from the first sale.
• Manitoba has a $30,000 small-seller exemption, but it generally does not reach an out-of-province seller, because it depends on having paid Manitoba RST on the stock you are reselling.
• British Columbia starts at $10,000 of sales into BC over 12 months, and immediately if you store inventory in BC.
• Quebec starts at $30,000 of supplies made in Quebec over 12 months if your business is resident elsewhere in Canada. If your business is resident in Quebec, the test is your worldwide sales instead.

Physical presence stopped being the test some years ago, so a store shipping across the country can owe registrations in several provinces at once.

Your store will not do this for you

Shopify charges a province's PST only once you add a tax registration for that region in its own settings. It is a switch you turn on after you register, not a lookup, and it does not watch these thresholds for you. Until you turn it on, an order shipping to Saskatchewan is charged GST alone.

What TALISK_HQ does

TALISK_HQ reads the destination of your invoices and of your store orders, and raises a card on Books health when a province's published rule looks like it applies to you and no registration is recorded. The card names the province, what you sold into it, and what the rule says. It is a heads-up for a conversation with your accountant, not a ruling.

The same reading appears on the GST/HST tab in Reports, under Provincial sales-tax registration, so the screen that reports the gap and the card that raises it cannot tell you different things. Where a province sets a dollar threshold, that line shows how far past it you are. Where a province sets none, it says so rather than showing you a target of zero.

Record a registration

Once you register with a province, record it so TALISK_HQ stops raising the card and can track that province's filing period:

1. Go to Ledger › Setup and open the business.
2. Under Provincial sales tax (PST / RST), choose the province.
3. Type the registration number.
4. Choose how often that province asks you to report, and enter the first day of any one of your reporting periods. TALISK_HQ works out every other period from there.
5. Select Add.

If you recorded a province before you knew its schedule, you can add it later with Change filing period on that row. The same goes for the number: select Add number (or Change number) beside the province, type it, and select Save number. There is no need to remove the province and add it again.

Quebec is the exception: record a QST number in the QST Registration # field just above, which is where TALISK_HQ has always kept it.

Quebec asks for the date your registration took effect

Beside the QST number there is a QST registration effective date, and TALISK_HQ will not save a QST number without it. It is the date printed on your Revenu Quebec registration, not the day you got around to typing the number into TALISK_HQ.

The date decides how every purchase is recorded, one document at a time:

• Dated on or after it, the QST you paid is a refundable input tax refund and goes to 1115 QST Input Tax Refunds.
• Dated before it, the QST you paid is part of the cost, and stays inside the expense, because you were not registered yet and could not claim it.

It is left empty on purpose. Guessing today would be wrong for anyone who back-records a bill or categorises last month's card charges, and it would be wrong in the expensive direction: every earlier purchase would quietly keep its QST as a cost.

Changing the date does not re-record anything

Correcting the effective date changes nothing that is already in your books. Each bill, receipt and card charge was recorded using the date that applied when it posted, and TALISK_HQ never rewrites posted entries behind you, because one of those periods may already be filed.

If you set or correct the date and there are purchases dated before it that were recorded with QST as a cost, Books health raises a card that lists them, by supplier, date and amount, and says the same thing: they were posted before the registration date you declared, and nothing has been re-posted. From there you can check the date against your registration, re-enter a document to claim its refund, or ask your accountant whether to claim them on your next return.

The card covers bills, receipts, expenses you paid personally, categorised card charges, and recurring entries you booked yourself with Run now. A charge TALISK_HQ recognised from a recurring agreement is the one case it cannot check, whether it booked itself or you confirmed it, because the tax on those comes from the agreement rather than the charge.

Your PST period will not match your GST period

A provincial filing period is set by the province, and it usually will not line up with your GST quarters. A business filing GST quarterly on a 28 February year end reports GST for March to May, June to August, and so on, while its BC PST quarter can run 1 May to 31 July. Nothing is wrong when they differ; they are two different governments on two different schedules.

That is why TALISK_HQ asks you for the period rather than working it out. There is nothing in your books that could tell it: the province decided the dates when you registered.

Each province gets its own account

When you record a registration, TALISK_HQ creates a ledger account for that province, for example 2121 PST Payable (British Columbia), and shows it beside the registration. This is how QuickBooks handles it too: each tax authority gets its own liability account, so each return reconciles to one account instead of to a shared pool you would have to split by hand.

Books that have never registered anywhere keep the single PST Payable account and are completely unaffected.

Once a period is recorded, two things follow.

The PST tab shows each province on its own window. Go to Ledger › Reports › Tax › PST (a book registered only in Manitoba reads RST). Each province has its own period chooser, set by default to your last completed provincial period, so the figure you read is the one that return covers. It shows the PST collected and, once you record the return, the commission and the amount due from it. Select See every sale to list the sales behind the figure; see See the sales behind your PST figure.

Record each return you file. Go to Reports › Tax › PST returns. It lists, grouped by province, every return you have recorded, however old, and every ended period TALISK_HQ expects a return for: one that ends, or falls due, on or after the later of the day your books started in TALISK_HQ and the date you registered with the province. Each one not yet recorded has Record the return. An older period you have not recorded is not listed there, because TALISK_HQ did not keep those books; use Record past returns for it. The same button appears on the PST tab once you pick a provincial period that has ended. Ledger, Setup shows how many are still to record, with a link here. Type the figures from the return you filed: the PST collected (it opens on what your books hold for that period, so a difference from your books stands out), the commission you kept, and anything else the return added, such as PST you self-assessed on purchases. TALISK_HQ shows the amount due from those figures. A recorded return shows Recorded in its Status column, and Paid as well once a payment on a bank line names it. Click the arrow at the start of a recorded row, or anywhere on the row, and it opens in place: the figures as you recorded them, the date you filed and the confirmation number, each payment that names the return with its date and amount (or Not paid yet), and See every sale for the sales behind that period. A period not yet recorded has no arrow, because there is no return to show.

Edit details in the opened row changes the date you filed and the confirmation number, the two things the province gives back. Neither is a figure, so changing them posts nothing and works even in a period you have locked.

Link a payment appears in the opened row of a return with figures that no payment names yet. It lists the PST payments already recorded on a bank line for that province that name no return, by date, amount and the bank's description; a payment recorded before payments could name their return is the usual case. Choose Link and the return shows Paid. Linking only records which return the payment paid: the entry stays exactly as it was, so it works in a locked period, and it does not book the return's commission. If that payment was recorded without the commission, the commission is still missing from your books afterwards, and TALISK_HQ keeps saying so. A link made this way can be undone with Unlink beside the payment.

Recording a return posts nothing: the payment is recorded on its bank line, and when you record it there you choose this return, which brings the commission with it (see Record a PST remittance to the province). The figures cannot be changed once recorded; if you made a mistake, select Undo and record it again. Once a payment names the return, undo that payment first. You can also record the filing with the figures left blank and add them later with Add the figures.

TALISK_HQ asks when your books are far from a return you recorded. If the PST collected in your books for that period is at least $100 away from what the return reported, and at least a tenth of it, TALISK_HQ asks what is missing, for example a store whose sales are not in yet. Answer I'll add what's missing to be asked again in a week if the difference is still there, or The difference is right to stop the question unless the difference changes by as much again. Answering posts nothing and the return stays as you recorded it. A return recorded with no figures is never asked about.

Catching up on returns you filed before TALISK_HQ? Select Record past returns on the PST returns tab. Every ended period not yet recorded is a row, oldest first, including periods from before your books started in TALISK_HQ. Enter the date you filed and the figures from each return you have to hand; rows without a filed-on date are skipped, so you do not have to do them all at once. TALISK_HQ records the whole set together or, if one row has a problem, records none and marks that row.

TALISK_HQ tells you when one is late. Recording a return is the only thing that stops TALISK_HQ asking, because the return goes to the province and TALISK_HQ has no other way to know you sent it. If a period passes its due date without a recorded return, Books health raises it. TALISK_HQ only looks at periods after the date you told it you registered, and never at one that ended and fell due before your books started in TALISK_HQ: it knows nothing about returns you filed before that, and guessing would just be noise.

TALISK_HQ reminds you before it is due. Books health raises a card as the provincial deadline approaches. The provinces do not share a due date: British Columbia wants the return and payment by the last day of the month after the period ends, while Saskatchewan and Manitoba want them by the 20th. Saskatchewan gives you until the end of that month if you both file and pay electronically; TALISK_HQ shows the earlier date, so following it is safe either way. Once you record that return, the reminder stops: there is nothing left to remind you of.

And the period picker gains a second list. Open it, choose Filing periods, and each province you have registered gets its own group beneath your GST/HST periods. Picking one puts the report, the general ledger, or the bills list on exactly the window that province's return covers, so you do not have to type the dates into Custom Range.

Registered in more than one province

Each province on the PST tab is a full view of its own, and TALISK_HQ never adds the provinces together. A row of province pills across the top switches between them. A status line above the pills names each province's next due date, or a return still to record, and the page opens on the province that needs you next, then on the one you last chose.

PST that TALISK_HQ could not prove belongs to one province sits in PST Payable (no province) and appears in no province's view. When that account holds a balance, a line above the pills says so, for example $312.40 of PST isn't assigned to a province, with a link to the entries behind it. It is never folded into a province's figure.