Bola Sweets & Restaurant Ltd., 2026 BCEST 61 is a straightforward illustration of why employment records need to exist when the work is being done, not after a wage complaint has already been decided.
A former employee complained that the restaurant had not properly paid overtime, statutory holiday pay and other wages. He said he worked long days, six days a week. During the Employment Standards Branch investigation, the restaurant could not produce reliable contemporaneous records showing when he actually worked. In the absence of better employer records, the delegate relied heavily on the employee's complaint and sworn evidence.
The resulting determination required the restaurant to pay approximately $60,684 in wages, $7,655 in interest and a mandatory $4,000 penalty.
On appeal, the restaurant tried to introduce a staffing calendar and several affidavits. It argued that the documents showed the employee worked fewer hours than claimed and that there had been cause to end the employment relationship.
The Employment Standards Tribunal rejected that effort. The calendar was not genuinely new evidence because, if authentic, it existed during the original investigation and could have been produced then. Its late appearance also conflicted with the restaurant's earlier position that no scheduling records existed. The supporting affidavits created further problems because they contained inconsistencies and did not align cleanly with the calendar they were supposed to support.
The Tribunal dismissed the appeal and left the original determination in place.
The practical significance goes beyond one restaurant. Employment standards disputes about hours often turn on records that employers are already required to keep. When those records are missing, a decision maker may have to choose between competing recollections. Evidence created or produced only after an adverse determination will face obvious credibility and admissibility problems, especially if the employer had an earlier opportunity to provide it.
For employers, accurate time records are therefore more than administrative paperwork. They are the evidence that may be needed to establish what an employee actually worked. Once an investigation has finished, reconstructing that record from calendars, affidavits or memory is a much weaker position than maintaining it properly from the start.