Do I need an accountant or a bookkeeper?

What a bookkeeper actually does

Bookkeeping is the ongoing, transactional layer: categorising expenses, reconciling bank and credit card accounts, issuing invoices, tracking receivables and payables, running payroll, and preparing GST/HST figures.

The work is continuous and its value is accuracy. A clean ledger maintained monthly costs a fraction of reconstructing twelve months of records the week before a filing deadline, and it produces numbers you can actually run a business on.

What an accountant adds

An accountant works on top of the ledger: preparing financial statements, filing T2 and T1 returns, planning salary versus dividend mix, advising on incorporation and structure, representing you in a CRA review, and preparing compilations for lenders.

The distinction is interpretation. A bookkeeper tells you what happened; an accountant tells you what it means and what to do about it. A CPA designation also carries professional liability and standards that matter when a bank or the CRA is reading the statements.

Why bad bookkeeping costs more at the accountant

Accountants generally charge more per hour than bookkeepers. If your accountant spends that time sorting a shoebox of receipts, you are paying a premium rate for clerical work.

Worse, reconstructed records are less defensible. Expenses categorised eleven months after the fact, from memory, are exactly what the CRA challenges in a review. Contemporaneous records — entered when the transaction happened, with the receipt attached — are the difference between a review that ends in correspondence and one that ends in an assessment.

When you can do it yourself

Self-preparation is realistic if you are a sole proprietor with a single revenue stream, few expenses, no employees, no GST/HST registration and no inventory. Software handles that competently.

It stops being realistic once any of the following appear: incorporation, employees, GST/HST registration, inventory, vehicle or home-office claims, multiple provinces, or foreign income. Each adds rules where the cost of getting it wrong exceeds the cost of advice.

The combined model most small businesses use

The common arrangement is monthly bookkeeping to keep the ledger current, plus an accountant at year-end for statements, returns and planning. That gives you accurate numbers throughout the year and professional judgement where it matters, without paying professional rates for data entry.

We provide both under one fixed fee, which removes the handover friction — the person filing your return is working from records prepared to the standard that return requires.

What to look for in either

• Canadian tax specificity — CRA rules differ materially from US practice, and generic advice is often wrong here
• Fixed fees — hourly billing penalises you for asking questions, which is when advice is most valuable
• Sector familiarity — deduction profiles and CRA scrutiny patterns vary sharply by industry
• Audit support included — whoever prepares the return should defend it without a new invoice
• Year-round availability — most planning opportunities close at year-end, not in April