Starting a service company? Set up your systems before the first job

You bought the truck. You have a customer who wants you on site next week. The last thing you want to think about is paperwork.

But the habits you set in the first month tend to stick. Companies that start with tickets in a glovebox and invoices typed up on a Sunday night usually still run that way five years later, just with more trucks and more Sundays. Setting up a few systems before the first job takes a couple of days. Fixing them after two years of messy records takes a lot longer.

This guide covers the basics for a new service company in British Columbia or Alberta: registering the business, getting your numbers from the CRA, sales tax, workers’ compensation, records, and how you’ll quote, invoice and get paid. It’s general information, not legal or tax advice. A one-hour conversation with an accountant before you start is money well spent.

Step 1: Register the business

Start by choosing a structure: sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation. BC’s own start-up guide lists those three options and suggests getting advice from a lawyer or chartered professional accountant before choosing.¹

In British Columbia, you request approval for a business name through BC Registries, then register or incorporate. The province says that once you’re registered you receive a Business Number, which can be used as an identifier for tax remittances, CPP and EI premiums and WorkSafeBC payments.¹

In Alberta, a sole proprietorship registers a trade name by filing a Declaration of Trade Name with an authorized registry agent. The province notes that a trade name doesn’t have a legal existence of its own, so a sole proprietor is personally responsible for the business’s debts. You’ll get an email when your federal business number is issued, unless you already have one.²

Step 2: Understand your business number

The business number (BN) is how the CRA identifies your business. The CRA says you need one if you need a GST/HST, payroll or other CRA program account, or if you incorporate. A business can have only one BN, and new program accounts are added to it.³

In practice, most new service companies will end up with at least a GST/HST account, and a payroll account once they hire.

Step 3: Decide on GST registration

You don’t always have to register for GST on day one. The CRA’s small supplier rule says that if your taxable revenue stays at or under $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters, you don’t have to register. If you go over $30,000 in a single calendar quarter, you stop being a small supplier and must register.⁴ The CRA also counts revenue from associated businesses, and sole proprietors include revenue from all their businesses.⁴

You can also register voluntarily.⁴ Many service companies do, because their business customers expect to see a GST number on the invoice, and because registering lets you claim input tax credits on the GST you pay on fuel, parts and equipment.⁵ Ask your accountant which makes sense for you.

In BC, also check PST. BC’s start-up guide notes you may need to register for PST depending on what you do.¹ PST applies to some services and not others. Our guide to GST and PST for service companies working across BC and Alberta covers the basics. Alberta has no PST.

Step 4: Workers’ compensation before your first hire

If you’ll have anyone working for you, even part time, set this up before they start.

• BC: WorkSafeBC says you’re required to register for coverage if you own a business that hires one or more workers, including workers on a contract basis.⁶
• Alberta: WCB-Alberta says that if you operate in a mandatory industry, you must open an account within 15 days of hiring your first worker. Its definition of a worker is broad and includes part-time, temporary and casual workers, subcontractors without their own WCB account, and unpaid workers, including family members.⁷

Owners aren’t always covered automatically, so ask your board about coverage for yourself, especially if you’ll be the one in the truck.

Step 5: Insurance

Talk to a commercial insurance broker before the first job, not after the first claim. For a trucking, rental or field-service company, the conversation usually covers liability, your vehicles and equipment, and any coverage your customers require in their contracts. Larger customers, especially in oil and gas and construction, often ask for proof of insurance before they’ll put you on their vendor list, so have the certificate ready.

Step 6: Records, from the first job

The CRA’s general rule is to keep records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, at your place of business or residence in Canada.⁸ Records means more than invoices: quotes, job tickets, receipts and anything that explains why you charged what you charged.

The easiest time to set up good records is before you have any. A few rules that work:

• One place for every job, with the customer, the work, the hours and the photos together.
• Every invoice numbered in sequence, with no gaps.
• Receipts saved the day you get them, not in a shoebox for year end.
• A separate bank account for the business from day one.

Step 7: Quoting, invoicing and getting paid

This is where new companies lose the most time, and the most money, without noticing.

Quotes

Write down your rates before your first quote: hourly rates, equipment rates, minimum charges, travel and fuel. Then quote from that list every time. A consistent price list is what stops you from quoting the same job three different ways to three customers.

Invoices

The CRA sets out what information an invoice needs so that your customer can claim input tax credits. For a sale of $500 or more, that includes your business name, the invoice date, the total, the GST charged, your GST/HST registration number, the customer’s name, a brief description of the work and the payment terms.⁵ Build that into your invoice template once and you won’t have to think about it again.

Then set a rule for when invoices go out. The closer the invoice is to the end of the job, the sooner you get paid, and the fresher everyone’s memory is if there’s a question. We wrote about invoicing on the same day the job closes.

Payments

Decide how customers can pay you (e-transfer, cheque, card) and what your terms are. Put both on every invoice. Decide now what happens when an invoice is late: a reminder after a few days, a call after two weeks. It’s much easier to follow a rule you set calmly than to make one up while you’re short on cash.

A start-up checklist

Task	Where	When
Choose a structure, register the name	BC Registries or an Alberta registry agent	Before you start
Get a business number	CRA	Comes with registration or your first CRA account
Decide on GST registration	CRA	Before you pass $30,000, or right away if you register voluntarily
Check BC PST	BC Ministry of Finance	Before your first BC invoice
Register for workers’ compensation	WorkSafeBC or WCB-Alberta	Before or right after your first hire
Get insurance	A commercial broker	Before the first job
Set up rates, quotes and invoices	Your own system	Before the first quote
Set up record keeping	Your own system	Before the first job

Where Dispatch fits

The last two rows of that table are what Dispatch is for. It keeps your customers, rates, jobs, quotes and invoices in one place, with GST and PST applied by province. Crews open a link on their phone to see their jobs and add photos and notes, with nothing to install. Invoices are built from the finished job and numbered in sequence, and customers can pay by card from a link.

If your business is new, we run a startup program for it. Businesses registered in the last 12 months can apply for basic Dispatch, free for one year, with 2 integrations of their choice. It’s limited to the first 50 approved businesses, and the team reviews every application. If it fits where you are, apply. If not, the checklist above still holds, whatever system you use.

Footnotes

1. Province of British Columbia, “Start your business,” gov.bc.ca, updated September 2026. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/startyourbusiness ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Government of Alberta, “Register a business name,” alberta.ca, 2026. https://www.alberta.ca/register-business-name ↩

3. Canada Revenue Agency, “When you need a BN,” Canada.ca, 2026. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/registering-your-business/you-need-a-business-number-a-program-account.html ↩

4. Canada Revenue Agency, “When to register for and start charging the GST/HST,” Canada.ca, 2026. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/gst-hst-businesses/when-register-charge.html ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Canada Revenue Agency, “Input tax credits,” Canada.ca, 2026. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/gst-hst-businesses/calculate-prepare-report/input-tax-credit.html ↩ ↩²

6. WorkSafeBC, “I hire & pay workers,” worksafebc.com. https://www.worksafebc.com/en/insurance/need-coverage/who-needs-coverage/hire-pay-workers ↩

7. WCB-Alberta, “Worker coverage,” wcb.ab.ca. https://www.wcb.ab.ca/insurance-and-premiums/types-of-coverage/worker-coverage.html ↩

8. Canada Revenue Agency, “Where to keep your records, for how long and how to request the permission to destroy them early,” Canada.ca, 2026. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics/keeping-records/where-keep-your-records-long-request-permission-destroy-them-early.html ↩