Definition of commercial services

Commercial services cover several services such as:

Royalties and licences fees - receipts and payments for the authorised use of registered trademarks, and of propriety rights such as patents, copyrights and industrial process and designs. It also includes fees for the right to replicate, distribute or otherwise use software.

Management services - includes legal services, accounting services, business and management consulting fees, public relations services, and it also covers charges between related parties for managerial and administrative services.

Financial services - covers financial intermediation and auxiliary services, usually provided by banks and other financial intermediaries and auxiliaries. Included are services related to financial activities, such as advisory, custody and asset management services, merger and acquisition services, deposit taking and lending, letters of credit, credit card services, commissions and charges related to financial leasing, factoring, and clearing of payments.

Note: fees and commissions on securities (such as broking, placement of issues, futures trading) are excluded from this survey.

Telecommunications - encompasses the transmission of sound, images or other information by telephone, telex, telegram, radio and television cable and broadcasting, satellite, electronic mail, facsimile services etc., but does not include the value of the information transported.

Computer and information services – covers design, engineering and management of computer systems (exclusive of the value of hardware) and the development and production of original (customized) software. Covers on-line information retrieval services, including database services and computer assisted document searches and retrievals, and operations of internet service providers. Also covers news agency services (as syndicated reporting services to the media).

Research and development – covers charges related to systematic investigations through experiment or analysis to achieve a scientific or commercial advance for, or through, the creation of new or significantly improved products or processes.

Professional services - includes services such as architectural, engineering and specialized design services, scientific and technical services.

Insurance - covers claims received from non-resident insurers and premiums paid to non-resident insurers. Insurance comprises life, accident and health, property, casualty, freight and other forms of risk protection.

Commissions on trade - covers commissions on goods and service transactions between resident merchants, commodity brokers, dealers, manufacturers' sales branches and commission agents and non-residents. Include auction commissions. Excluded are commissions already recorded in the price of goods imported and exported through Customs.

Training - covers charges for employee training and development; also covers such services to the educational market as testing, consulting and the development and delivery/adaptation of course materials and systems. Educational equipment sales and replications of course material for general sale are excluded. Fees incurred for attending full time university and college programs are beyond the scope of this survey and should not be included.

Audiovisual and cultural services - receipts and payments for the production of films and videos; includes receipts or payments for post-production, motion picture laboratory, sound recording, broadcasting, performing arts, rentals and distribution rights sold to the media for a limited number of showings in specified areas.

A complete list of definitions for all services covered by this survey is available upon request.

Costs or revenues for transportation services (such as freight), travel expenses and fares, goods imported or exported, interest, or profits and losses should not be reported on this survey. Salaries paid to non-Canadian employees for whom you complete a T4 slip (Statement of remuneration paid) should not be reported on this survey.

The Canadian reporting entity

The Canadian reporting entity, as a statistical unit, is defined as the organisational unit of a business that directs and controls the allocation of resources relating to its domestic operations, and for which consolidated financial and balance sheet accounts are maintained from which international transactions, an international investment position and a consolidated financial position for the unit can be derived.
The Canadian reporting entity should provide a fully consolidated report including itself and all of its Canadian subsidiaries and associates.

Service transactions to include or to exclude depending of the entities involved

Please include commercial service transactions conducted between the Canadian reporting entity (surveyed by this questionnaire) and all foreign parties, related or not.

Do not include transactions conducted between one of your foreign related parties and another foreign entity. For example, if your foreign affiliated entity purchases a service from an unrelated entity from another country, that transaction should not be included. Do not include transactions conducted between one of your foreign related parties and a Canadian unrelated party.

Transactions between your Canadian entity and another Canadian entity owned by foreign interests are to be excluded as well. However, you should report transactions when your entity purchases (or sells) commercial services from (to) your foreign parent or from (to) a foreign affiliated or associated entity.

How to report transactions

Report all the international commercial service transactions by partner country. Sales of commercial services are to be reported in the top half of the questionnaire under "Total Revenues Earned on services sold to non-residents" while purchases of commercial services are reported under "Total Expenses Incurred on services purchased from non-residents".

Amounts reported should be rounded in thousands of Canadian dollars. For example, an amount of C$ 5,234,568.00 should be reported as "5,235" on the questionnaire. Amounts below C$ 500.00 are rounded to "0" and should, therefore, be omitted.
Allocate transactions to countries by using the country codes from the "yellow sheet" included with the questionnaire. If a country is not included on the list, write the name of the country instead.

When actual amounts are not available, please estimate your service expenses and revenues. Specify, in the "Comments" section that amounts are estimated.

If you are not sure if a transaction has to be reported on this survey, you could report the amount and provide a description of the transaction in the "Comments" section.

If, after reading this guide, you confirm that your enterprise has no transaction of commercial services then please report "0" at line 1 on both revenues and expenses sections, sign the form and return it to Statistics Canada.

Example:
An enterprise is providing commercial services to three foreign clients:

1. It charges C$50,000.00 to a subsidiary unit located in the United States for commercial services.
2. It charges C$100,000.00 to an unaffiliated unit located in the United States for commercial services.
3. It charges C$60,000.00 to a subsidiary company located in the United Kingdom for commercial services (report these transactions as revenue earned on services sold to non-residents since it is exporting commercial services).

The country code "USA" is entered on line 1 under the country code column and the country code "GBR" is entered on line 2 under the country code column.

The transactions with the two clients located in United States are summed and "150" is reported on line 1.

The revenues ("60") from the client located in United Kingdom are entered on line 2.

The total of all revenues ("210") is reported on line "Total revenues from all countries".

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• Membership in a First Nation or Indian band

'Membership in a First Nation or Indian band' refers to whether a person reported membership in a First Nation or Indian band. A band is defined as a body of Indians for whose collective use and benefit lands have been set apart or money is held by the Crown, or who have been declared to be a band for the purpose of the Indian Act. Many Indian bands have elected to call themselves a First Nation and have changed their band name to reflect this. With the 1985 amendment to the Indian Act of Canada (Bill C-31), many Indian bands exercised the right to establish their own membership code, whereby it was not always necessary for a band member to be a Registered Indian according to the Indian Act.

Citation note
The definition of band is based on that provided in "Words First - An Evolving Terminology Relating to Aboriginal Peoples in Canada" Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, October, 2002.

'Person' refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programmes.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• Aboriginal identity

'Aboriginal identity' refers to whether the person reported identifying with the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. This includes those who reported being an Aboriginal person, that is, First Nations (North American Indian), Métis or Inuk (Inuit) and/or those who reported Registered or Treaty Indian status, that is registered under the Indian Act of Canada, and/or those who reported membership in a First Nation or Indian band. Aboriginal peoples of Canada are defined in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2) as including the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada.

'Person' refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programmes.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• Aboriginal group
• Aboriginal group response

'Aboriginal group' refers to whether the person reported being an Aboriginal person of Canada, that is, First Nations (North American Indian), Métis or Inuk (Inuit). Aboriginal peoples of Canada are defined in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2) as including the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. A person may report being in more than one of these three specific groups.

Information on Aboriginal group may be supplied by someone other than the person himself or herself. For example, a parent may provide answers regarding his or her child.

'Person' refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programmes.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• Aboriginal ancestry
• Aboriginal ancestry response
• Variant for analysis of single Aboriginal ancestry

'Aboriginal ancestry' refers to whether a person reported ancestry associated with the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. Aboriginal peoples of Canada are defined in the Constitution Act, 1982, Section 35 (2) as including the Indian, Inuit and Métis peoples of Canada. Ancestry refers to the ethnic or cultural origins of the respondent's ancestors, an ancestor being usually more distant than a grandparent. A person can have more than one ethnic or cultural origin.

'Person' refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programmes.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• Calendar year

'Year of immigration' refers to the year in which the immigrant first obtained his or her landed immigrant/permanent resident status. A landed immigrant/permanent resident is a person who has been granted the right to live permanently in Canada by immigration authorities.

Note: In the 2011 National Household Survey, ‘Year of immigration’ is referred to as ‘Period of immigration’ when data are shown aggregated by periods of more than one year.

'Immigrant' refers to a person who is or has ever been a landed immigrant/permanent resident. A landed immigrant/permanent resident is a person who has been granted the right to live in Canada permanently by immigration authorities. Immigrants are either Canadian citizens by naturalization (the citizenship process) or permanent residents (landed immigrants) under Canadian legislation. Some immigrants have resided in Canada for a number of years, while others have arrived recently. Most immigrants are born outside Canada, but a small number are born in Canada.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• 'Age' is expressed in individual years of age ranging from 0 (less than one year) to the maximum number on the file.
• Age categories by five-year age groups

'Age at immigration' refers to the age at which the immigrant first obtained landed immigrant/permanent resident status. A landed immigrant/permanent resident is a person who has been granted the right to live permanently in Canada by immigration authorities.

'Immigrant' refers to a person who is or has ever been a landed immigrant/permanent resident. A landed immigrant/permanent resident is a person who has been granted the right to live in Canada permanently by immigration authorities. Immigrants are either Canadian citizens by naturalization (the citizenship process) or permanent residents (landed immigrants) under Canadian legislation. Some immigrants have resided in Canada for a number of years, while others have arrived recently. Most immigrants are born outside Canada, but a small number are born in Canada.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2007
• Variant: Labour Force Survey (LFS) Industries

'Industry' refers to a generally homogeneous group of economic producing units, primarily engaged in a specific set of activities. An activity is a particular method of combining goods and services inputs, labour and capital to produce one or more goods and/or services (products). In most cases, the activities that define an industry are homogeneous with respect to the production processes used.

Note: Though industry applies to establishments, a person can be assigned an industry classification based on the establishment where he or she is currently employed or where he or she has been employed in the past. Industry can be assigned based on the establishment associated with the person's main job or some other job. However, for industry to be collected through a survey, the person must be associated with an establishment.

'Employed person' refers to a person who, during the reference period: (a) did any work at all at a job or business, that is, paid work in the context of an employer-employee relationship, or self-employment. It also includes persons who did unpaid family work, which is defined as unpaid work contributing directly to the operation of a farm, business or professional practice owned and operated by a related member of the same household; or (b) had a job but were not at work due to factors such as their own illness or disability, personal or family responsibilities, vacation or a labour dispute. This category excludes persons not at work because they were on layoff or between casual jobs, and those who did not then have a job (even if they had a job to start at a future date).

The data for this variable are reported using the following classification(s) and/or list(s):

• National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2011
• Variant of NOC for highly aggregated data
• Variant for analysis by NOC skill level
• National Occupational Classification for Statistics (NOC-S) 2006

'Occupation' refers to the kind of work performed in a job, a job being all the tasks carried out by a particular worker to complete his or her duties. An occupation is a set of jobs that are sufficiently similar in work performed.

Kind of work is described in terms of tasks, duties and responsibilities, often including factors such as materials processed or used, the industrial processes used, the equipment used, and the products or services provided. Occupations are generally homogeneous with respect to skill type and skill level.

Occupation applies to the contribution of labour to that part of economic activity that is within the production boundary defined for the System of National Accounts.

Note: Though "occupation" applies to jobs, a person can be assigned an occupation classification based on the occupation of a job that he or she currently performs or that he or she performed in the past. Occupation can apply to a person's main job or other jobs. However, for occupation to be collected through a survey, a person must be associated with a job.

'Employed person' refers to a person who, during the reference period: (a) did any work at all at a job or business, that is, paid work in the context of an employer-employee relationship, or self-employment. It also includes persons who did unpaid family work, which is defined as unpaid work contributing directly to the operation of a farm, business or professional practice owned and operated by a related member of the same household; or (b) had a job but were not at work due to factors such as their own illness or disability, personal or family responsibilities, vacation or a labour dispute. This category excludes persons not at work because they were on layoff or between casual jobs, and those who did not then have a job (even if they had a job to start at a future date).