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Childcare operators · Peel, Halton & Toronto
Cost-based funding reconciliations, a spending plan that tracks your allocation through the year, and payroll that meets the wage rules — from a Mississauga firm that already does this for centres like yours.
Why reconciliation surprises happen
Under cost-based funding, a centre's CWELCC allocation is the Region's estimate of what the program should cost to run. After year-end the Region reconciles that estimate against what you actually spent — site by site — and recovers the difference wherever spending came in below the allocation or outside the eligible-cost rules. If costs ran over, the shortfall is yours to absorb.
None of this is hard to get right with books that were set up for it. It is hard to fix in March from a shoebox.
Audited financial statements must be issued by a Licensed Public Accountant. We don't issue the audit opinion ourselves, but we arrange and coordinate the audit with the independent auditor we work with. We keep your books, prepare the reconciliation and the funding reports, and hand your auditor a clean, tied-out file.
Because an auditor can't also do your bookkeeping, most centres need both — and the bookkeeping side is where the reconciliation is won or lost.
If you have a reconciliation letter, a recovery notice or a FAIR review in front of you, call 647-870-8498. We'll tell you what it means and what can still be done.
What we do for childcare operators
Every cost coded eligible or ineligible, by site, as it's recorded — not sorted out after year-end. Reconciled to the bank every month.
Actual spending against your program cost allocation, base-fee revenue against expected, and a short plain-language note on what to adjust before December 31.
Wage floors, WEG and WCF enhancements applied in the right order, shown on pay stubs and paid every cheque, and T4s that agree with the funding reports.
The reconciliation package, the FAIR or SFR, and the schedules your auditor needs — prepared from books that already tie out.
The T2 for the centre (or the T1044 or T3010 for a non-profit centre) and the personal returns for the family, planned together.
Questions from Peel, Halton or Toronto Children's Services answered with the numbers behind them, and the support for one-time emergency funding requests documented properly.
A year with GATS
Dates below follow Peel's 2026 guideline; Halton and Toronto set their own. We track the ones that apply to you.
Staff notices for planning time and professional learning go out (by January 30 in Peel, proof by February 13). Wage floors and enhancement stacking confirmed for the new year. Spending plan set against your allocation.
T4s and payroll reconciliations by the end of February. Books closed, reconciliation package and FAIR or SFR prepared, audited statements to the Region by April 30 in Peel.
Quarterly checks of spending against allocation and base-fee revenue against expected, so a shortfall or an overspend shows up with months left to act.
Eligible spending that still fits the allocation, professional learning budget used, top-ups reviewed and next year's staffing costs modelled. December 31 is the last day this year's eligible costs count.
What this is worth
Anonymised, from licensed centres and home child care agencies. Every operator's numbers are different — these are the kinds of problems that only turn up when someone reads the books against the allocation during the year.
Transition
It came to us partway through the funding year, with books that had not been read against the allocation since January. Sorting the spending by stream showed about $90,000 of the allocation still unspent, with months left to use it.
Spent on eligible costs before December 31. None of it recovered.
Quarterly review
Quarterly check-ins compare actual eligible spending and base-fee revenue against the allocation while there is still time to act. On one centre the gap was wide enough that, left to the reconciliation, it would have come back as a recovery.
About $63,000 kept, by spending it on what it was for.
Cost allocation
$14,000 of costs a centre had already paid sat against general operating spending, where they earned nothing. Read against the funding rules, they qualified as eligible costs.
$14,000 claimed instead of returned.
New funding
A centre had to show financial viability before the Region would extend CWELCC funding. We prepared the financial viability template and the supporting statements that gave the Region its rationale.
CWELCC funding secured.
Client figures, rounded and anonymised. Past results are not a promise of the same outcome — what a reconciliation produces depends on your allocation, your spending and your service manager.
From a client
“GATS has been instrumental in managing our company's tax, CWELCC funding reconciliations, bookkeeping and accounting.”
Send documents
Enough to tell you where the centre stands against its allocation. Upload through Intuit Link, our secure client portal — existing clients sign in, new clients ask for an invitation. Please don't email banking details or staff SINs.
CWELCC guides
Written from the 2026 guidelines and the files we work on. Free to read and share.
Common questions
We facilitate it. Audited financial statements have to be issued by a Licensed Public Accountant, and independence rules restrict that firm from also keeping your books. We do the bookkeeping, payroll, reconciliation and tax, and give your auditor a file that ties out — which is what keeps the audit shorter. We coordinate it with the independent auditor we work with, and keep the books audit-ready all year so there are fewer issues at audit time.
Yes. We rebuild the year-to-date books with eligible-cost coding, reconcile the payroll enhancements paid so far, and give you a mid-year position against the allocation before anything else.
Since 2026 each site reconciles on its own and funding can't move between sites, so we keep site-level books and a site-level spending plan. Shared costs are allocated on a documented basis the Region can follow.
Yes. Non-profit centres reconcile the same way; the differences are the surplus rules and filing a T1044 or T3010 instead of a T2. We handle both.
It depends on the number of sites and the state of the books. Call or email and we'll quote after a short look at your last reconciliation.
Peel, Halton and Toronto, and other Ontario service system managers on request. The provincial guideline is the same everywhere; the reporting templates and dates differ, and we track them.
General information for Ontario licensed child care operators, not advice for your centre. CWELCC terms differ between service managers and are revised every year.
Also by Huphy S. Ghayur
KeepCount is made by KeepCount Inc., a separate company. It keeps ratios, staff checks and inspection-ready records in one app for centres and home child care agencies. Learn more at keepcount.ca.
Call 647-870-8498 or email info@ghayurtax.com.