Do you have multiple employees who worked from home due to COVID-19?
Recently CRA introduced new guidelines for claiming expenses for employees who worked from home due to COVID-19. Employees can choose either a flat 400-dollar deduction that needs no proof, or use a detailed method that requires employer to provide employee with the T2200S form. From our experience working with payroll and finance departments, to accommodate varied requests from employees during the busiest time of the year could be very disturbing.
To save time we recommend providing T2200S to all employees who worked from home and let them decide which method to use.
Below is a guide describing how to send hundreds of T2200S quickly and at no cost. Please contact us, if you need expanded template for original T2200 form.
A quick way to send many T2200S forms
This solution requires Microsoft Office 2010 and higher. Using Excel you enter the data for employees in one table, and macro will create emails and send them to your employees. There is also an option to produce T2200S forms in PDF format, in case you prefer to distribute them manually or don’t have Microsoft Outlook.
If you don’t use Microsoft Office, email us, there might be a solution that will work with Google Workspace.
Step 1
Download the workbook from here
Save the file into the new and empty folder.
Please be aware, this is macro enabled workbook, it’s always best to check with your IT department before downloading anything from internet. You can review the Source Code, and, if you prefer to use template without embedded macro and to add macros manually, you can follow this guide.
Step 2
Get a digital signature in JPEG or PNG format. If you don’t have a digital signature, you can sign a blank piece of paper and scan it. Once you open scanned document, you can use snipping tool to select area around signature and save it as PNG or JPEG file.
Step 3
In the Excel file open “T2200S” worksheet and click on cell J35, insert picture and resize it to fit the template.
Step 4
Populate the “Data” worksheet. It has employer and employee information. The requirements are straightforward, make sure you leave no blank cells.
Hint
To populate email you can use one of the following formulas, just replace “website.com” with your company’s domain.
For versatile.analytics@website.com use =B14&”.”&C14&”@website.com”
For versatilea@website.com use =B14&left(C14, 1)& “@website.com”
For vanalytics@website.com use = LEFT(B14, 1) &C14&”@website.com”
Step 5
Before you run any macro, please save and close all other open Excel workbooks and emails. Make sure Outlook is running.
Run a test. In the “Data” worksheet’s upper right corner, click on orange button “Preview for first 3 entries without sending”. This will open 3 emails to preview the messages and forms without sending.
Step 6
Congratulations! You can now sit back and let the script do the work. Click on green button “Create and Email T2200S” of yellow button “Create T2200S in PDF Format without Sending”. In the bottom left corner of Excel window, you will see progress report – we tested sending 500 forms, it took 7 minutes. While macro is running, you would not be able to do anything else, it blocks your Excel and Outlook.
Would you like to learn how effective was a transition to remote work for your department?
We are launching a cost-effective solution that would evaluate transaction log for departments like AP, AR, Purchasing and Call Centers. You will get a detailed performance comparison of before and after COVID-19 and a list of actionable improvements. Contact us, if you would like to learn more.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to J from Power Spreadsheets for his handy guide on PDF attachments, Ron de Bruin for his VBA emailer function, and to everyone who helped to share this solution.
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