Questions nurses actually ask

On pay rules, on the app, and on what happens to your data.

Comparing options? What to look for in a nursing paycheque calculator — and why most paycheck calculator apps, built for US nurses, get Canadian pay wrong.

The pay questions nurses actually ask

Under the BCNU agreement, a nurse who works on a scheduled vacation day is paid double time for the whole shift, and the vacation day itself is still paid separately at straight time — you do not lose it. It applies to full-time and part-time nurses alike. onWard handles this as its own case, because the ordinary overtime rules do not produce the right answer here. Other agreements word it differently, so check the citation for your province.

It depends on your agreement and your status, and this is where most short cheques come from. Full-time nurses generally go to overtime for anything beyond the scheduled shift or beyond the weekly hours. Part-time and casual nurses usually go to straight time until a threshold is crossed — in BC that is 225 straight-time hours over three consecutive bi-weekly periods, which is the same as six weeks at full-time hours. onWard tracks that rolling window for you and tells you where you stand.

No. Canada uses marginal rates, so a higher bracket applies only to the portion of income above that threshold — crossing one never leaves you with less than before. What you will notice is that a large cheque gets over-withheld: payroll taxes each period as though you earned that much all year, so more comes off than you actually owe. You get the difference back at tax time. onWard shows gross and net for the period so you can see what the shift really adds.

It depends what you want, and it is worth being clear that banking does not save tax on its own. Taking a large cheque now means more is withheld than you owe, and you recover it at tax time. Banking the hours moves that pay to a lighter period, so less is withheld up front — better cash flow, same tax in the end. The one case where banking genuinely reduces tax is drawing the hours down in a year when your income is actually lower: going part-time, a leave, or a retirement year. Then the hours are taxed at a real lower rate. Also check whether your agreement banks at the premium rate — most nursing agreements do, so an overtime hour banks as more than an hour.

Full-time is 37.5 hours a week, and six weeks of that is 225 hours. Once a part-time nurse has worked 225 straight-time hours across three consecutive bi-weekly periods, further hours become overtime. The window rolls — it is always the most recent six weeks, not a block that resets — so pickups from two months ago have dropped out of the count while last week still counts. onWard shows your current position against the threshold on the Schedule tab.

Usually yes, and it is one of the most commonly missed lines on a pay stub. Most agreements pay a premium when you are called in with insufficient notice, and it stacks on top of any overtime or differential that already applies. If you accepted a shift the same day, check for it.

Differently from full-time, and this is the single most common thing to be short-paid on. Several agreements pay part-time and casual staff a percentage in lieu on every cheque rather than the holiday itself, and which of your hours count toward that percentage varies. Working the holiday is a separate calculation again. onWard applies your province’s rule rather than a general one.

Generally yes — the differential is paid on the hours worked and the overtime multiplier applies as well, though the order of operations differs between agreements. Some provinces express differentials as a flat amount per hour and others as a percentage of your base rate, which is why the same shift can be worth noticeably more or less across a provincial border.

Both are separate premiums in most agreements and both are frequently left off a cheque, particularly when you covered charge for part of a shift rather than all of it. onWard lets you record in-charge hours on the day you worked them so they show as their own line in the breakdown.

onWard records banked hours on the shift where you earned them, at the multiplier your agreement gives, so your bank reflects value rather than raw hours. You set the multiplier once in Settings. When you draw the time down later, the app knows what it was worth.

Use the Compare tab. Enter the gross total from your real pay stub and onWard will show you the difference against its own calculation and point to which premium, differential or shift is the likely cause. You then have a specific figure and the clause behind it — which is what your steward needs. “I think it is short” goes nowhere; “I worked 82.5 hours and was paid for 75, under clause 27.05” gets fixed.

onWard shows the last ratified rates and labels the agreement as expired rather than guessing at a settlement. Where new rates have been announced but not yet ratified — as with BC’s July 2026 schedule — they are documented but not applied, so your figures stay consistent with what you are actually being paid today.

About the app

Every calculation feature is free, with no subscription, no trial that expires and no ads — shifts, premiums, overtime, statutory pay, the pay stub breakdown and the paycheque comparison. The Calendar planner and Team sharing are a one-time Plus unlock that supports development; everything you need to check a paycheque works without them.

All three. Licensed practical nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and registered nurses are covered by the same provincial nursing agreement in most of the country — in BC, LPNs moved into the Nurses’ Bargaining Association in 2013 and have been eligible for every Article 28 shift premium since April 2017. Evenings, nights, weekends, overtime, statutory and super statutory pay and the part-time overtime threshold all work identically. The only thing that differs is the wage grid, and onWard does not assume one: you enter your own base rate and everything calculates from it.

Thirteen: BCNU (BC), UNA (Alberta), SUN (Saskatchewan), MNU (Manitoba), ONA (Ontario), FIQ (Quebec), NBNU (New Brunswick), NSNU (Nova Scotia), PEI, RNUNL (Newfoundland and Labrador), plus the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon.

Every wage, differential, overtime and statutory-holiday figure is taken from the ratified agreement and cited in the app, so you can check it yourself. Nurses have reported errors and I have corrected them within days — if you find one, tell me.

Yes — that was the point. Once onWard is installed it works with no connection at all, which matters when a call-out comes while you are out and you want to know what the shift is worth before you answer.

Yes — onWard is free on both the App Store and Google Play, and works the same on either.

Yes. If you work shifts with differentials and overtime you can enter your own rates manually and use every feature. The thirteen built-in agreements are nursing ones, but the calculator itself is not restricted to them.

Privacy and independence

Nowhere. There is no account, no sign-in and no server. Your schedule, rates and pay figures are stored on your own phone and are never transmitted anywhere. Nothing about how you use onWard is tracked.

No. I am a working RN in British Columbia and onWard is independent. It is not endorsed by any union, health authority or employer, and nothing in it is a substitute for your collective agreement or your steward.

Me, directly. Every message goes to a working nurse rather than a support queue, and contract corrections get priority over everything else.

Try it on your own cheque

onWard is free on both stores, with no account and no ads.