.svg)
MakersHub tops this list because it's the only platform here that calculates Canadian tax the same way your vendor does, line by line, instead of on the subtotal. If a Canadian bank account and domestic payment execution matter more to you than tax accuracy, Plooto is the closer fit. This guide compares five platforms so you can match the software to how your vendors actually write a bill.
Most AP software never catches this mismatch: a Canadian vendor calculates tax line by line, on each item, then adds up the rounded amounts. An accounting system usually calculates tax once, on the subtotal. The two land a cent or two apart on almost every bill.
Foster Heating & Cooling, a Vancouver Island HVAC contractor, ran into this directly: 200 to 300 monthly bills from their largest supplier alone, each one landing a cent or two off. Someone on their team spent half a day a week finding and checking every difference by hand, before anything even got coded or paid.
Quick comparison
Non-negotiables for AP software in Canada
- Tax caught at the line level, not the subtotal, since that's where the cent-level mismatch comes from
- The recoverable versus non-recoverable split done automatically: federal GST (or the GST portion of HST) is recoverable, provincial tax is not and belongs in job cost
- Every province's actual tax name: five provinces run a single blended HST (Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island); four run federal GST alongside a separate provincial tax (British Columbia and Saskatchewan call it PST, Manitoba calls it RST, Quebec calls it QST); Alberta and the three territories run federal GST only
- Tax codes pulled from the business's own accounting system rather than hardcoded, since rates change without much notice, Nova Scotia's HST dropped from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025, the first change to any province's rate in 14 years
- Support for QuickBooks Desktop specifically, and not on a vague timeline: Intuit stopped selling new Desktop Pro, Premier, and Desktop Payroll licenses to Canadian customers in April 2025, Desktop 2022 lost all support in May 2025, and Desktop 2023 is set to phase out this year, with 2024 following in 2027 and the entire Desktop line ending after that
The shortlist
Ramp, best for AP bundled with cards and spend
Ramp pairs bill pay with corporate cards and expense management. Multi-entity support includes per-entity AP email addresses. Ramp's own documentation states entities generally need a legal relationship or shared management to sit inside one multi-entity account.
Best for: businesses that want AP folded into a broader card and spend platform.
Plooto, best for Canadian-native domestic and cross-border payments
Plooto is built specifically for the Canadian market, offering payments on Canadian banking rails alongside CRA remittance handling. It syncs with QuickBooks and Xero. Reviewers report cross-border payments can be costly and domestic transfers can take several business days; it's built around payment execution rather than line-level tax accuracy.
Best for: Canadian businesses whose priority is a Canadian-native payments experience over tax-mismatch detection.
MakersHub, best for catching the tax mismatch at the line level
MakersHub reads a Canadian vendor's bill the way the vendor actually wrote it: tax calculated line by line, not as one number on the subtotal. The federal GST (or the GST portion of HST) codes as recoverable; provincial tax, whatever a given province calls it, codes into job cost instead, without anyone doing that split by hand. On QuickBooks Desktop, the same automatic tax code pull that runs on Online happens through MakersHub's in-house Web Connector, confirmed directly, not inferred. CAD can be the base currency, and a USD bill lands correctly with the exchange rate applied. Foster Heating and Cooling, a Vancouver Island HVAC contractor, kept its full QuickBooks Desktop file and line-item detail with MakersHub after the file grew too large for QuickBooks' own import tools to migrate cleanly.
Best for: Canadian businesses on QuickBooks whose vendor bills and accounting totals don't quite agree on tax.
BILL, best for simple, low-volume bill pay
BILL supports configurable approval chains and a broad accountant network many Canadian bookkeeping firms already use. It doesn't calculate tax at the line level or split recoverable from non-recoverable tax automatically.
Best for: small Canadian businesses with simple, low-volume bills.
QuickBooks Bill Pay (native), best for avoiding a separate platform entirely
QuickBooks Online Advanced and Bill Pay Elite include built-in approval workflows with role-based assignments. It doesn't catch the line-level tax mismatch or split recoverable GST from provincial tax automatically.
Best for: businesses that only need approval control added to QuickBooks.
How to choose
Start with where your books live and what's actually breaking. If bills never quite match your accounting totals on tax, or provincial tax isn't split from GST correctly, an AP platform built to read that detail, like MakersHub, is the direct fix