Every Departure and Leave Filed Before the Window Closes
Someone gives notice on a Friday afternoon, or a job wraps up two weeks earlier than planned. In the following days you are covering their work, and the Record of Employment sits somewhere on a list under everything more urgent.
That is the form that decides whether your former employee can claim EI at all. We prepare it from the payroll records we already keep, with the insurable hours, the earnings, and the reason for the interruption taken from the actual runs, and file it electronically with Service Canada. It comes with the payroll service we run for employers across BC, at no separate charge.
A deadline measured in days, in the week you have least time
The electronic filing window runs from the end of the pay period in which the earnings stopped, so it closes in days, not weeks. That window also opens at the worst possible moment, when the departure is still being absorbed and a government form is the least urgent thing in front of you.
Until it is late. Then your former employee cannot open a claim, the money they were expecting does not arrive, and the follow-up comes back to you at a point when you had considered the whole thing finished. We file inside the window every time, including the Friday afternoon departures, because an ROE asks for nothing your payroll processing has not already produced. You send the last day worked and what happened. That is the whole of your involvement.
Layoffs, leaves, and shutdowns all need one too
The form is triggered by an interruption of earnings, not by someone leaving for good, and that is the distinction most employers miss. An ROE is generally needed when any of these happen:
- Someone quits, is dismissed, or is laid off
- Work runs out and a person is off the schedule for seven consecutive days or more
- An employee starts maternity, parental, or compassionate care leave
- Someone stops working because of illness or injury
- A seasonal or project shutdown pauses everybody at once
The one that catches good employers is leave. You know the person is coming back, so it does not feel like a departure, but their earnings have stopped and their claim needs the form. We watch for those in the payroll itself, so a leave that starts mid-cycle does not depend on anyone remembering to mention it.
The reason code is a decision, not a checkbox
Service Canada reads the reason for the interruption before almost anything else, because it affects whether a claim is approved and how quickly. A resignation, a shortage of work, a dismissal, and a leave are four different outcomes for the person, and a code chosen carelessly can hold up a legitimate claim or invite questions about one you would rather not revisit.
You are not expected to know which is which. You tell us what actually happened, in whatever words you would use to describe it to a colleague, and we translate that into the right entry. If the departure was complicated, we will ask two or three specific questions first rather than making an assumption you would have to live with afterwards.
When a job ends, the ROEs arrive in a batch
Trades, transport, and equipment operators are one of Port Coquitlam’s three largest occupational groups, roughly 6,590 residents strong, and that kind of work does not end one person at a time. A project completes, a contract is not renewed, and a whole crew comes off the schedule in the same week.
That is when the paperwork is heaviest and the person who normally handles it is busiest. Each of those ROEs needs its own insurable hours, its own final pay including any vacation payout, and its own dates, and getting them out together is a matter of having the payroll already reconciled rather than reconstructing five people’s years at once. Nobody on that crew should be waiting on you to get paid by Service Canada. They get filed together, on time, and you get the confirmations in one place.
Record of Employment Preparation FAQs
Inside the deadline, which for electronic filing runs from the end of the pay period in which the earnings stopped. The only thing we need from you is the last day worked and what happened, sent as soon as you know. Tell us on the Friday afternoon it happens and it is handled. Tell us three weeks later and we are already working against the clock.
Nothing. Describe what happened in ordinary words, including whether the person left on their own, was let go, ran out of work, or is on leave, and we select the code. The code is what Service Canada reads first when they assess the claim, and it is the field employers most often get wrong on a form they fill out once or twice a year.
Yes. So does illness, injury, or any leave where the earnings stop, because the ROE is what lets them start an EI claim at all. Owners tend to associate the form with firing someone, which is why leaves are the most commonly missed trigger. The employee usually finds out it is missing at the point they need the money.
It depends on whether the gap is long enough to count as an interruption of earnings, which is generally seven consecutive days with no work and no insurable earnings. A short shutdown between jobs often crosses that line even when everyone intends to return. We look at the actual dates rather than the intention, because Service Canada will do the same.
Not when it is filed electronically. It goes directly to Service Canada and your former employee can see it through their My Service Canada Account, so there is no paper copy for you to print, sign, or mail. You get confirmation of what was filed, which is worth keeping in case the claim is ever questioned.
