Benefits for Canadian Organizations

ePly is a Canadian company that works with organizations throughout North America, but if you are based in Canada, you will likely have some specific requirements that most US based registration providers are unable to meet or consider.

Here is a list of items that Canadian organizations should consider when evaluating online registration systems:

Download these
details as a file.

Server Location	The US Patriot Act allows the US government to access data on servers that are physically located in the United States. Canadian organizations may find this Act to be in conflict with their own privacy policies. All of the servers that we use to provide our online registration services are physically located in Canada and have met the requirements of Canadian Federal and Provincial governments. In some cases we have been asked to sign an agreement stating that all data is housed in Canada. If you need a similar document signed, please ask your account manager.
Taxes	Depending how your business is structured, the type of event your are working on, and what you are selling, you may be required to collect a combination of GST and Provincial Sales Tax. Our online forms are capable of automatically calculating any combination of taxes that get added to the total amount.
Tax Exemptions	For some events, there may be certain people or organizations that are exempt from paying GST and/or Provincial Sales Taxes. If you will need to allow for these exemptions, just let us know and we will add our tax exemption options to your registration forms. This option will remove the tax from the total owing when an exemption number is entered.
Tax Reporting	If you do collect taxes for your event, you need to be able to track all of the amounts to meet your government reporting requirements. The ePly system has specific tax reports that are automatically set up when you have taxes on your form. The reports track all collected amounts, refunded amounts, and exemptions.
Currency	Canadians attending an event in Canada will expect to pay in Canadian dollars. If you are charging in US dollars, you will be deterring registrations and will lose money when you convert the US amounts to Canadian dollars.
Billing	In early 2008, the Canadian dollar was almost at par with the US dollar. Nearing the end of 2008, there is close to a 20% difference. This means that if you are using a US based registration system, you will be pay a 20% premium.
Address Details	Your form should be using the terms “Province” and “Postal Code” if you are targeting a Canadian audience. Some US based systems will force you to refer to provinces as “States” and postal codes as “Zip Codes”.
Canadian Spelling	Since ePly is a Canada-based company, we will make sure that we use the Canadian spelling for certain words, such as cheque.
French Versions of Registration Forms	Some organizations that we work with are mandated to provide a French version of their registration form. If this is the case for you, we can produce a registration form for you where all text (including the validation messages, confirmation emails, receipts, etc) is in French.