WSIB, PHIPA, FINTRAC: The Compliance Tracker Your Industry Actually Needs

Your WSIB Expired 12 Days Ago. Did You Know?

Right now, somewhere in Ontario, a plumber is heading to a job site with an expired WSIB clearance certificate. A massage therapist is seeing clients without realizing their college registration renewal was due last week. A restaurant owner is about to fail a DineSafe inspection because the food handler cert on file belongs to an employee who quit in October.

None of them are negligent. They're busy. They're running businesses. And the systems they use to track compliance -- a filing cabinet, a spreadsheet, a sticky note on the monitor, their own memory -- are not up to the task.

Compliance isn't glamorous. Nobody starts a business because they love tracking certificate expiry dates. But miss one, and you're looking at fines, shutdowns, lost contracts, and liability exposure that can end your business overnight.

The Filing Cabinet Problem

Here's how most small businesses track compliance today:

• Paper files in a cabinet that hasn't been organized since 2023
• A spreadsheet that was accurate when someone first made it and hasn't been updated since
• Memory -- "I think that renews in March... or was it May?"
• The panic method -- wait until someone asks for proof, then scramble to find it

This works right up until it doesn't. And when it doesn't, the consequences aren't a slap on the wrist. They're serious.

What Your Industry Requires (And What Happens If You Miss It)

Trades and Construction

• WSIB Clearance Certificate -- required for most contracts, must be current
• Working at Heights certification -- expires every 3 years
• WHMIS training -- required for anyone handling hazardous materials
• Building permits -- must be obtained before work starts, inspections at specific stages
• Liability insurance -- must maintain minimums, policy renewal dates matter
• Journeyperson certificates -- must stay current with the Ontario College of Trades

If you miss it: A general contractor hires your company for a condo renovation. They ask for your WSIB clearance. It expired 3 weeks ago. You lose the contract. Worse -- if someone gets injured on the job while your WSIB is lapsed, you're personally liable. That's not a fine. That's bankruptcy.

Healthcare and Wellness

• PHIPA compliance -- Personal Health Information Protection Act (Ontario's health privacy law)
• College registration -- CCO (chiropractors), CMTO (massage therapists), CNO (nurses), etc.
• Professional liability insurance -- must maintain and provide proof
• 10-year patient record retention -- mandatory under PHIPA
• CPR/First Aid certification -- renewal every 2-3 years
• Continuing education credits -- required to maintain registration

If you miss it: Your college registration lapses because you didn't submit your continuing education credits on time. You are now practicing without registration. Every patient you see during that gap is a regulatory violation. The college can suspend you, fine you, and make the decision public.

Food Service and Restaurants

• DineSafe inspection -- Toronto Public Health can show up unannounced
• Food Handler Certification -- at least one certified food handler on-site during all operating hours
• Smart Serve -- required for anyone serving alcohol, expires every 5 years
• HACCP temperature logs -- daily temperature recordings for fridges, freezers, and hot holding
• Fire safety plan -- must be current, staff must be trained
• Business license renewal -- annual, easy to forget when you're running a kitchen

If you miss it: Health inspector walks in Tuesday at 11 AM. Your food handler certification is expired. Your temp logs haven't been filled in for two weeks. You get a Conditional Pass -- or worse, a Closed notice on your door. That yellow sign doesn't just cost you today's revenue. It costs you reputation. Customers see it. They post about it. They don't come back.

Real Estate

• FINTRAC compliance -- Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
• RECO registration -- Real Estate Council of Ontario, annual renewal
• Anti-money laundering (AML) records -- mandatory for every transaction
• Errors and omissions insurance -- must maintain coverage
• Continuing education -- required for RECO renewal
• Client identification records -- must retain for 5 years minimum

If you miss it: FINTRAC audits your brokerage. Your AML records are incomplete. Client identification forms are missing for three transactions. The fine starts at $1,000 per violation for individuals and goes up to $500,000 for entities. And FINTRAC publishes the names of non-compliant businesses publicly.

Automotive

• WSIB -- required for all employees
• Environmental disposal compliance -- used oil, filters, tires, batteries all have regulated disposal requirements
• Equipment safety certifications -- hoists, lifts, and compressors need regular inspection
• TSSA registration -- Technical Standards and Safety Authority for fuel systems
• Repair facility registration -- with the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council (OMVIC) if applicable

If you miss it: The Ministry of the Environment inspects your shop. Your waste oil disposal records are incomplete. Your used tire manifest is out of date. Fines range from $5,000 to $100,000 per violation. And they can issue a stop-work order that shuts you down until you're compliant.

Childcare

• CCEYA licensing -- Child Care and Early Years Act, the backbone of every licensed childcare operation
• Staff-to-child ratios -- must be maintained at all times, not just "on average"
• Vulnerable sector checks -- required for all staff and volunteers, must be current
• First Aid/CPR for all staff -- renewal every 2-3 years
• Immunization records -- for every child, verified and on file
• Fire drill records -- monthly drills, documented

If you miss it: A Ministry inspector visits. One staff member's vulnerable sector check is 3 months expired. Your staff-to-child ratio was off for 20 minutes during a lunch break. These aren't minor issues. Licensing conditions can be imposed, suspended, or revoked. Parents get notified. Your reputation -- built on trust and safety -- takes a hit it may not recover from.

The Cost of Missing One

This isn't theoretical. These fines are real and they happen constantly:

• WSIB penalties: Up to $25,000 for failing to register or maintain clearance
• PHIPA violations: Up to $200,000 for individuals, $1,000,000 for organizations
• DineSafe closure: Average revenue loss of $2,000-5,000 per day while closed, plus permanent reputation damage
• FINTRAC: Up to $500,000 per violation for entities
• CCEYA: License revocation means closing permanently
• Environmental violations: $5,000-100,000 per offence, plus cleanup costs

And fines are only part of it. The real cost is:

• Lost contracts (clients require proof of compliance before hiring you)
• Insurance claims denied (your insurer won't cover incidents during compliance gaps)
• Personal liability (directors and owners can be held personally responsible)
• Reputation damage (public registries publish violations, Google remembers forever)

Why Generic Task Managers Don't Work

You've tried using a calendar. Or Trello. Or a reminder app. Set a reminder for "renew WSIB" and move on.

The problem is that generic task managers don't understand your industry. They don't know that:

• Working at Heights is a 3-year cycle, not annual
• Smart Serve expires every 5 years, but only if the certification was issued after a certain date
• PHIPA requires 10-year retention, but the clock starts from the last date of service, not the record creation date
• WSIB clearances need to be re-requested (not just renewed) and can take 5-10 business days
• Some certifications require prerequisites that also have expiry dates

A calendar reminder that says "WSIB" on March 15 doesn't tell you that you needed to start the renewal process on March 1 to have it back in time. It doesn't flag that your Working at Heights cert expired 6 months ago because you set the reminder on the wrong year. It doesn't track which specific employees hold which certifications.

You need a system that understands the rules of your industry, not just a to-do list with dates.

What Industry-Specific Compliance Tracking Looks Like

Imagine this instead:

• You enter a certification once: type, issue date, expiry date, which employee holds it
• The system knows the renewal rules for your industry
• 90 days before expiry: You get a heads-up. Plenty of time.
• 60 days before expiry: A reminder with the renewal steps and links
• 30 days before expiry: An urgent notification. This needs action now.
• 7 days before expiry: Red alert. Drop everything and handle this.
• Expired: Flagged immediately. Dashboard turns red. You can't miss it.

Every certification, every employee, every expiry date -- visible on one dashboard. Not buried in a filing cabinet. Not scattered across three spreadsheets. Not living in your head.

And when an inspector shows up, or a client asks for proof, or you're bidding on a contract that requires documentation -- you pull up the dashboard, generate a report, and you're done. Audit-ready in 30 seconds, not 3 hours of digging through paper files.

Building a Digital Compliance Trail

Paper records have a problem beyond disorganization: they don't prove when you checked them.

Digital compliance tracking creates an audit trail. When a certificate was uploaded. When reminders were sent. When renewals were completed. Who completed them. Timestamped, tamper-resistant, and exportable.

This matters when:

• An insurer questions whether you maintained coverage continuously
• A regulator asks for proof of ongoing compliance, not just current status
• A client requires documentation going back 2-3 years
• You're selling your business and the buyer wants to see your compliance history

Paper can be lost, damaged, misfiled, or fabricated. A digital trail with timestamps and verification can't be faked and can't be lost in a flood.

The Bottom Line

Compliance tracking isn't exciting. It's not the reason you started your business. But it's one of the fastest ways to lose your business if you get it wrong.

The filing cabinet isn't enough. The spreadsheet isn't enough. Your memory definitely isn't enough.

You need a system that knows your industry, tracks your dates, reminds you before it's too late, and produces documentation on demand. Not a generic calendar. Not a task manager. A purpose-built compliance tracker that understands the difference between WSIB and WHMIS, between PHIPA and PIPEDA, between a DineSafe inspection and a fire safety audit.

See Compliance Tracking for Your Industry

Alpaca Launch builds industry-specific compliance modules into every plan. Trades, healthcare, food service, real estate, automotive, childcare -- each with the certifications, timelines, and renewal rules that actually apply to your business.

No more spreadsheets. No more filing cabinets. No more "I think it's still valid."

See compliance tracking for your industry and find out what you should be tracking.

Talk to us about your specific requirements -- every industry is different, and we build for yours.