Quebec Construction Chart of Accounts for Xero (Free)

Quebec construction bookkeeping carries less tax friction than BC’s and more paperwork than anyone’s: materials wash clean through the ledger because QST recovers like GST, while the province surrounds the trade with its own institutions, RBQ licences, CCQ levies, attestation requirements, whose charges are out of scope and whose compliance is non-negotiable. This Xero chart of accounts is shaped for exactly that mix.

Costs that wash, costs that do not

Materials and equipment and tool rentals default to QC - GST/QST on Purchases at 14.975%, and for a registered contractor both components come back, ITC and ITR, leaving job cost at the pre-tax price. Estimators arriving from the PST provinces can drop the embedded-tax habit; the number on the supplier quote is close to the number the job bears.

Subcontractor labour defaults to the same pair with two flagged alternatives: the custom GST-only rate for out-of-province subs without QST registration, and Out of Scope for small suppliers. The account note carries Quebec’s onboarding trio: GST number, QST number, and where the contract chain requires it, the sub’s Attestation de Revenu Quebec.

Licences, permits and CCQ levies is the account the PST provinces do not need: RBQ licence fees, municipal permits, and CCQ assessments, all out of scope, all real money, all kept visible instead of scattered.

Retention, bilingual edition

Holdbacks receivable and holdbacks payable track contract retention outside ordinary AR and AP, coded out of scope while held; both taxes on the retained slice generally land at release. The monthly reconciliation of holdback balances to contract terms keeps the tax calendar and the release calendar aligned, and Quebec’s dual-tax return makes prompt release booking doubly worthwhile.

The rest of the shape

Crew meals recover at half under both taxes; safety gear claims in full; the yard’s rent carries both taxes, both recoverable; insurance arrives exempt but bearing Quebec’s premium tax as cost; payroll runs out of scope with its own Quebec-deduction liability account, because CCQ trades payroll is its own discipline.

Progress draws set the tax clock

Quebec construction billing follows the standard timing rule with double weight: both taxes generally become payable at the earlier of invoicing and payment on each progress draw, holdback excluded until release. Contractors who invoice draws late to smooth cash flow are also deferring the tax event, which is legitimate, and contractors who invoice early to look busy are accelerating nearly 15% of the draw into the current filing, which is expensive to discover afterwards. Draw schedules written with the tax calendar in mind keep the combined return predictable through the season, and the winter shutdown months stop producing surprise balances.

Setup and rhythm

1. Create the four custom rates in Xero (GST on Purchases at 5%, plus the three zeros) under Tax settings, then import via Accounting, Chart of accounts, Import.
2. Job-cost with tracking categories over these accounts rather than per-project account clones.
3. Put both registration numbers on every progress billing; commercial clients claim recoveries against them.
4. Reconcile holdbacks monthly, and book releases as events.
5. Keep the sub roster annotated: registrations, attestations, and billing pattern (14.975%, 5%, or nothing).

Construction paper arrives dusty and daily, and Quebec adds a second tax and a second regulator to every folder. Hubdoc captures it at the source. ExpenseFlow reads each bill, applies the combined-or-GST-only supplier logic, keeps holdbacks and regulator fees out of scope, and posts coded entries into Xero against these accounts, so the file stays ready for either auditor. Dext rules the lumber yard and rental house into consistency.

The QuickBooks build is at Quebec construction chart of accounts for QuickBooks; rates are documented in the Quebec Xero tax rates reference.