Bookkeeping

Accounting

Bookkeeping is the day-to-day recording and categorising of a business's financial transactions, forming the foundation for accounting and tax filing.

Bookkeeping captures every sale, purchase, payment and receipt and organises them into a general ledger. It is the transactional layer that everything else is built on: accurate books produce accurate financial statements, correct GST/HST returns, and a defensible tax filing.

Good bookkeeping is contemporaneous, entered as transactions happen with source documents attached, rather than reconstructed months later. The CRA requires businesses to keep books and records, generally for six years, and clean records are the single biggest factor in how smoothly a CRA review goes.

Example

Each month a bookkeeper reconciles the business bank account, categorises expenses, matches receipts to transactions, and prepares the numbers the accountant uses to file the HST return and, at year-end, the T2.

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Bookkeeping Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions regarding our compliance workflows and service guarantees.

Bookkeeping records and categorises transactions. Accounting interprets those records, prepares statements, files returns and provides planning advice.
The CRA generally requires books and records to be kept for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Digital copies are acceptable if legible and complete.
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