Informatics professional services price indexes (IPSPI)

Detailed information for 2024

The informatics professional services price indexes measure annual price changes for various informatics services such as data processing and hosting; software and software licensing; computer systems design; and custom software design services.

Data release - September 26, 2025

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The informatics professional services price indexes measure annual price changes for various informatics services such as data processing and hosting; software and software licensing; computer systems design; and custom software design services . These price indexes are useful indicators of economic activity in the informatics services industry and can also prove helpful as a supplementary tool for performance evaluation, cost monitoring, contract assessment and benchmark comparisons. In addition, the indexes are used by the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA) to arrive at estimates of real value added for the industry and to measure changes in productivity in this industry.

Statistical activity

These indexes are a part of the Services Producer Price Index program (SPPI) at Statistics Canada.

The SPPI program develops and produces price indexes for a wide range of business service categories. This initiative fills an important data gap in the area of economic statistics and has resulted in a more comprehensive set of service price indexes. It also allows Statistics Canada to produce more accurate estimates of real value added of the Gross Domestic Product and changes in productivity.

Reference period: The time period for which the IPSPI equals 100; currently this is the year 2015.

Collection period: Collection normally begins in late April of the year following the reference period and runs until August of the same year.

Subjects

• Business, consumer and property services
• Prices and price indexes
• Professional, scientific and technical services
• Service price indexes

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of all business establishments in Canada that engage in the provision and sale of informatics professional services.

Observed population:

This consists of all business establishments in Canada that are classified on Statistics Canada's Business Register (BR) to one of the following three (NAICS) industries:

NAICS 518210 - Data processing, hosting, and related services

NAICS 51321 - Software publishers

NAICS 54151 - Computer systems design and related services

The observed population excludes businesses with an annual revenue less than CAN$200,000 in each of the three NAICS industries listed above.

Differences between the target and observed populations arise mainly due to issues of classification on Statistics Canada's Business Register. For example, a Canadian business that has 10% of its sales revenue classified to NAICS 518210 would be considered part of this survey's target population, but according to the conventions adopted by Statistic Canada's Business Register, would not be classified to this NAICS industry since a majority of its sales revenues are not attributable to this industry. In this instance, this establishment would be part of this survey's target population, but not part of the observed population.

• Additional documentation

Instrument design

The questionnaire used for the informatics professional services price indexes was developed by subject-matter experts at Statistics Canada.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design and a longitudinal follow-up.

Sampling Unit

Establishment

Definition: the establishment is the unit at which all accounting data required to measure production are available. It is defined as the most homogeneous unit of production for which the business maintains accounting records from which it is possible to assemble all the data elements required to compile the full structure of the gross value of production (total sales of shipments, and inventories), the cost of materials and services, and labour and capital used in production.

Sampling and Sub-sampling

The target total number of establishments selected is 1000.

The number of establishments sampled in each industry is proportional to the size of the industry on the survey frame (in terms of annual revenue).

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Following sample selection, new survey participants (respondents) are introduced to the survey through telephone interviews. During this initial phase of data collection, respondents are guided through the process of selecting representative products for which prices will be reported in subsequent survey cycles (i.e. longitudinally). This process may span several collection cycles until respondents become familiar with the survey.

After the initialization phase, data are collected on an ongoing, annual basis via electronic questionnaire (EQ).

Information about the time it takes respondents to complete the survey questionnaire is collected and monitored closely. Currently, it takes respondents an average of 100 minutes to complete the survey.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Error detection is conducted at the time of data collection. The electronic questionnaire has built-in error detection functionality, so that survey respondents are made aware of potential reporting errors prior to submitting their questionnaire. This reduces the total operational cost of administering the survey (in terms of the number of necessary follow-up attempts) as well as the burden on survey respondents.

During post collection processing, a set of systematized error detection procedures identify outliers and possible reporting anomalies.

Telephone communication (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) is used for non-response and to follow-up with respondents when data is unclear or in possible error. Several follow-up contacts can be made including sending out a reminder fax or letter in order to collect data.

Time and effort is devoted to keeping the specifications constant such that only the pure changes in price are tracked. Some information is also collected in order to ensure, as much as possible, that the collected data correspond to the same specifications over time. This constant quality price then feeds into the CSMA estimates of constant dollar GDP.

Imputation

Missing data are generally estimated by a systematized imputation process. In any given period, price data may not be available for estimation. In such cases, missing data may be imputed using the average price movement of remaining units within the same stratum (overall mean or targeted mean imputation method).

Estimation

The prices collected for the IPSPI are the prices that the businesses would charge if they were to re-estimate the model contract during the current reporting period (i.e. the current year), or average licensing fees for establishments that had business activities in software and software publishing during the period. A price relative is derived using the current quarter estimate and the previous quarter estimate of the same model contract.

Estimates are produced by calculating a weighted average of price relatives by industry which are chained together to form an index series.

Quality evaluation

An in-depth assessment of quality is conducted prior to the dissemination of estimates. This assessment is based on two key elements of quality (accuracy and coherence); as defined in Statistics Canada's guidelines for the validation of statistical outputs.

The collection instrument itself (a web-based questionnaire) includes many edits and data validation checks, to ensure that the data is valid and coherent before it is received by Statistics Canada.

Analysts also undertake additional validation activities every cycle to ensure the coherence of survey estimates. These include among others activities: analysis of price changes over time (including analysis of trends), at the business/company, industry, subsector and sector levels; certification of key contributors to price change; and confrontation of estimates against other related data sources. Contextual analysis of survey results is also performed in light of prevailing economic conditions.

Engagements with relevant stakeholders are also undertaken periodically. Forums involving other Statistics Canada analysts, industry stakeholders and partners at other national and international statistical agencies provide valuable insights that inform the development and research agenda of the program.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Collected data are converted to price indexes and data are released as such, so that it is not possible to identify the suppliers of raw prices.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

With each release, data for the previous year may be revised, and is finalized at the same time. The indexes are not seasonally adjusted.

Data accuracy

The statistical accuracy of these indexes depends on the price and weight data obtained from survey respondents. It also depends on the reliability of the sampling procedures used to select establishments into the survey sample.

Processing procedures for data editing are in place to ensure the validity and consistency of the survey data. Consequently, the aggregate indexes at all levels are considered to be statistically reliable.

Non-sampling error

Sampling errors occur when observations are made only on a particular subset of the overall population and not on the entire population. All other errors that arise from the various survey phases are referred to as non-sampling errors. For example, these errors can occur when a respondent provides incorrect information or does not answer certain questions; when a respondent misinterprets a question or definition; when a unit in the target population is omitted or covered more than once; when an out of scope unit is included by mistake; or when errors occur in data processing.

Non-response bias

For establishments that do not respond to the survey, their data is computed as a weighted average of the data from the establishments that did respond.

It is suspected that the primary effect of non-response on these price indexes is to increase the variance (inaccuracy) of the price indexes. There is no evidence that non-response leads to statistical bias in the price indexes.