Event starts in 66:19:45 · October 22–23, 2026 · Virtual
Unstoppable
together
The right systems and the right people make you unstoppable.
2,000+ Professionals
Two Days
10+ Speakers
8 CPD Hours
Wagefest is back for 2026. It’s Canada’s liveliest virtual get-together for accountants, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Come connect, swap what works, and learn from the rest of the payroll community.
This year’s built around one idea: the right systems and the right people make you unstoppable. Practical sessions, CPD hours, real conversations with peers, and plenty of fun — that’s the lineup.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Two days.
One community.
Sharpen your skills
Learn from experts, guest speakers, peers and our team.
Get ahead
Gain practical takeaways you can use right away, plus CPD-eligible credits.
Grow your network
Connect with the payroll community from coast to coast, and build relationships that last.
Have some fun
Earn bragging rights with challenges, prizes, and a bit of friendly competition throughout the event.
Explore the floor
See what’s new from Wagepoint and our partners in the digital exhibit hall, with direct access to the experts.
Meet our speakers
Ben Richmond
CEO at Wagepoint
Alex Webber
Keynote speaker
Laura acs, CPB, PCP, CNAP
Founder and Managing Partner at Collective Finance
Steven Van Alstine
VP of Professional Standards & Education at the National Payroll Institute
Chantal Mercier-Ouellette, LIT/SAI, CIRP
D. & A. MacLeod Company Ltd.
Eric Saumure CPA, CA
Principal at Zenbooks
Yannick Lemay
Senior Tax Training Specialist at H&R Block Canada
Andrew wall, CPA, CMA
Managing Partner at CPA4IT
Clayton Achen CPA,CA, TEP
Managing Partner at Achen Henderson CPAs
Jenna Poste
VP of Product at Wagepoint
Bianca Mueller
Community Manager at Wagepoint
Julie morris, CPHR
Country Manager at MyHR
Teresa Slack, CPB
Founder at Teresa Slack Consulting
Dawn Barrett
New Business Manager at Xero
Melissa lenos, CPB, PCP
Melissa Lenos, CPB, PCP, Partner at King Business Solutions
Amin torfe, MFE
Account Manager Small Business at TD Commercial Banking
What past attendees
are saying
Sessions
Exhibitor Hall Open
Welcome & Opening Remarks
BEN RICHMOND, CEO AT WAGEPOINT
The unstoppable you: Real-life tools for work, life, and everything in between
Hitting a wall looks different for everyone. For some, it’s client deadlines piling up. For others, it’s the business decision that keeps getting pushed off, or the moment you talk yourself out of raising your rates, taking on that new client, or finally hiring the help you need. Running a business or a practice comes with more pressure and comparison than most people talk about, whether that shows up at work or in life outside it.
Alex has experienced it firsthand. He’s the only person in the history of NBC’s American Ninja Warrior to go from host to competitor. He brings that story, doubt and all, into this keynote to open Wagefest. From there, he hands you real-life tools to build confidence, push past your own internal limits, and work through change, even for goals you don’t quite believe you can reach yet. You’ll walk away with practical ways to push past your own walls in your business, your practice, and your life, and the confidence to act on them starting now.
ALEX WEBER
Stop being the bottleneck: Build a payroll practice that scales
Payroll is one of the most operationally critical functions in a finance practice, yet it’s often one of the biggest sources of manual work and a bottleneck that runs through the owner. Every hour you spend chasing clients or fixing errors is an hour you’re not billing, advising, or growing your practice. Laura Acs, founder of Collective Finance, walks through how systemizing payroll workflows, from employee inputs through processing, reconciliation, and review, turns it into a standardized operating system for your whole practice. Using real-world examples from her own firm, she shows how a well-designed payroll process feeds more efficiently into bookkeeping, reporting, and cash flow visibility, with clear roles and approvals that let it scale as your client base grows. The focus is not simply on processing payroll faster, but on using payroll as an operational anchor that allows the rest of the finance team to work more efficiently.
LAURA ACS, CPB, PCP, CNAP, FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER AT COLLECTIVE FINANCE
The quiet pay cut: Why paying yourself first is a cash flow decision
When a month goes badly, most business owners cut the one payment nobody will notice: their own. New national data from the Zenbooks Financial Clarity Index found that 27.6% delayed paying themselves in the last 90 days, roughly three times the rate of delaying vendors or the CRA.
Eric Saumure, CPA, CA, principal at Zenbooks, opens with the findings. Then, a panel of bankruptcy trustee, banker and tax professional works through what to do about it: realistic benchmarks for cash runway, buffers and owner pay, and the steps that break the pattern.
ERIC SAUMURE, CPA, CA, PRINCIPAL AT ZENBOOKS / CHANTAL MERCIER-OUELLETTE, LIT/SAI, CIRP FROM D. & A. MACLEOD COMPANY LTD. / Amin Torfe from TD Commerical Banking / Yannick Lemay, Senior Tax Training Specialist at H&R Block Canada
Anything but payroll: A midday trivia reset
Take a midday break. Jump into a live trivia round in the chat for bragging rights and a shot at a prize, or spend the time in the virtual exhibit hall. None of the categories have anything to do with payroll (unless one of them secretly does).
Build your first AI voice agent: A hands-on workshop
What if an AI agent could call clients, answer questions, collect information, and know exactly when to bring a person into the conversation? In this beginner-friendly, hands-on workshop, Andrew Wall shows how CPA4IT uses AI voice agents for real client communication, then walks you through building your own using ElevenLabs. No coding experience required. You’ll choose a task, write the agent’s instructions, pick a voice, and test a live conversation. You’ll set clear boundaries for what it shouldn’t handle, and how to build in a smooth handoff to a person when that happens. Bring your laptop and a free ElevenLabs account. You’ll leave with a working prototype and a process for improving it.
ANDREW WALL, Managing Partner at CPA4IT
What to watch when Canada’s economy tightens
Canadian small business sales have fallen for three straight quarters, and invoices are taking an average of 29 days to turn into cash. As an owner, both your profits and cash flow are likely feeling the squeeze.
The good news: there are early signs that tell you what’s coming, if you know where to look. This session walks you through the numbers that matter most right now, and how to set them up so they’re in front of you every month, not just at year-end, going into next year and beyond. You’ll leave knowing what your accounting and payroll data can tell you on its own, and what you and your advisor should each be watching together.
Xero
Beyond Today: Wagepoint’s Vision for Tomorrow
JENNA POSTE, VP OF PRODUCT AT WAGEPOINT
The last laugh: Punchlines for payroll people
You’ve spent the day on deadlines, deductions, and compliance. None of it’s funny, so we brought in someone whose actual job is to be. Grab a drink and let a stand-up comedian take it from here, or drop into the virtual exhibit hall.
Exhibitor Hall Open
Industry intel: What’s changing in payroll for 2027 and beyond
Payroll is changing fast, federally and provincially. Stay ahead of regulatory shifts, emerging challenges, and key changes shaping payroll in 2026 and 2027, so you can adapt, plan, and lead with confidence. From CPP enhancements and updates to taxable benefits, to new CRA and Service Canada reporting requirements and shifting provincial labour standards, the rules shaping payroll keep moving. This session gives you a clear, practical read on what’s changing, and how to adapt your payroll processes and policies to stay compliant. Plus, hear how your peers are navigating these changes, too.
STEVEN VAN ALSTINE, PLP, CAE, VICE-PRESIDENT, PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS AND EDUCATION AT NPI
Balancing busy season and always-on payroll
Payroll runs every two weeks whether or not it’s tax season. For firms juggling both, that overlap is where service quality tends to slip first, deadlines get tight, coverage gets thin, and payroll clients notice before anyone else does.
This session offers a candid look at how firms protect payroll service levels through the crunch. You’ll hear how they structure ownership so payroll doesn’t fall to whoever has a spare hour, what stays fixed versus what flexes when capacity is tight, and which tools and workflows make coverage possible without burning out the team. You’ll leave with a clearer sense of where your own firm’s busy-season payroll process is exposed, and a few concrete ways other firms have closed that gap.
Dawn Barrett, New Business Manager at Xero / Melissa Lenos, CPB, PCP, Partner at King Business Solutions
Beyond the raise: Understanding total compensation and keeping your best people longer
Cost of living keeps climbing, but payroll budgets don’t move as fast. For small business owners, the raise conversation has become one of the hardest parts of the job. A team member expects an increase, but the business can’t afford it, or their skills haven’t grown into the role yet. Julie Morris has spent 25 years building workplaces where people feel valued and fairly paid. She’s a Chartered Professional in Human Resources and Country Manager at MyHR. She’ll walk through what total compensation really means for a small business, and how to help your team see pay as one part of a bigger picture that includes growth, flexibility, and benefits. You’ll leave with a career framework employees can see themselves in, along with scripts for the moments when a raise isn’t warranted yet, so these conversations build trust instead of straining it.
JULIE MORRIS, CPHR, COUNTRY MANAGER AT MYHR
Build a personal brand people actually trust
Your name is already doing some of the marketing for you, whether you’ve thought about it or not. This session gets at what a personal brand actually means for accountants, bookkeepers, and small business owners, especially if you’d rather just do the work than post about it. It’s not a highlight reel. It’s the reputation that gets you referred, hired, and called back. You’ll leave with a simple way to decide what to share and where, so it never turns into a second job, and a clearer sense of how trust and referrals build over time, not just followers. Most of all, you’ll have a way to show up, online and in person, that feels like you, not like someone else’s marketing plan.
BEN RICHMOND, CEO AT WAGEPOINT / CLAYTON ACHEN, CPA, CA, TEP, MANAGING PARTNER AT ACHEN HENDERSON CPAS / Teresa Slack, CPB, Founder at Teresa Slack Consulting
That’s a Wrap: Until Next Year
Register
Register free for two days of sessions, big ideas, and prizes. Can’t make it live? Sign up and we’ll send you the recordings.
Ready for big ideas, and even bigger connections?
Grow together. Win together. Unstoppable together. We’ll see you at Wagefest 2026.
Event FAQs
Wagefest is Wagepoint’s signature event of the year: two days where the Canadian payroll community comes together to learn, connect, and celebrate the small businesses and the people who keep them running (looking at you, accountants and bookkeepers). It’s free to attend and fully virtual, and better than free, since you might leave with a prize or two. Accountants and bookkeepers can earn CPD-eligible credits, so bring a colleague.
Are you an accountant or bookkeeper? A small business owner? Thinking about becoming one? If that’s you, come hang out. If it isn’t, that’s okay too. We welcome anyone who’s keen to learn and have a good time doing it.
Wagefest is virtual. It runs October 22–23, 2026. (Session times to come with the full schedule.)
After the event concludes your certificates will be sent directly to your inbox.
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