Every set of books has a chart of accounts, whether the owner chose it or not. Accounting software ships with a default list, and most small businesses start posting into it on day one without looking at what is in there. Two years later the owner is staring at an income statement with an account […]
A contractor came to us last spring with two numbers that would not agree. His accounting software said he had $41,000 in the bank. The bank said $28,000. He had been running the business off the software figure for four months, and he had just signed a lease on a second truck. Nothing dishonest had […]
Restaurant bookkeeping in Canada, from a former CRA auditor. Daily sales summaries, the Ontario $4.00 rebate, tips, delivery apps and inventory.
Every few weeks a small business owner asks us the same question in slightly different words. A friend told them about the HST quick method, it sounds like free money, and they want to know why their last bookkeeper never mentioned it. The honest answer is that the quick method is neither a loophole nor […]
Almost every owner who calls us about a CRA letter asks the same thing first. Why me? The honest answer is that it is rarely personal, and it is usually not luck either. The Canada Revenue Agency scores your return before a human being ever opens it. Something in your file scored high enough to […]
Live in Ontario and earn income in Quebec? A former CRA auditor sets out which Quebec tax obligations are real, which are not, and what to file.
Last updated August 2026. The vehicle is the deduction owners are most confident about and least able to prove. Almost everyone driving for a business knows the trips are deductible. Almost nobody can show, on paper, which trips they were. That gap is where the money goes. The claim is usually honest. The record behind […]
Last updated August 2026. The day you hire your first employee, you stop being just a business owner. Payroll makes you a collection agent for the federal government, and the rules that come with that job start running the moment you write the first pay cheque. That sounds heavier than it is. Payroll for one […]
Last updated August 2026. Nobody falls three years behind on their books in one decision. It happens one busy month at a time. A quarter slips, then a season, then the software subscription lapses, and by the time somebody asks for a financial statement the whole thing feels radioactive. Owners tell us they are embarrassed […]
Last updated August 2026. There is a line in Canadian tax that most owners cross without noticing. One quarter you are a small business quietly invoicing without sales tax, and the next you owe the government money you never collected. The line is $30,000, and the part that catches people is that the CRA decides […]
