Bookkeeping vs tax filingTwo jobs two times of year
What the monthly work covers, what the year-end return covers, and what the state of your books does to the year-end bill.
These are two different purchases. This page covers where one stops and the other starts: which work is priced monthly, which is priced once a year, and what happens at the join when the monthly half was skipped.
That join is where the year-end invoice is decided, and it is the part nobody quotes on in advance.
What each one covers
How the work divides
What the monthly work covers
The work that runs all year: categorizing every transaction, reconciling the bank and credit card accounts, closing each month, filing GST and PST, and running payroll. Source deductions, T4s, an ROE when someone leaves.
Monthly is the word doing the work. The books are right as the year happens, instead of being reconstructed in March from a folder of receipts.
What the year-end return covers
The work that happens once the year is closed: annual financial statements, then the income tax return itself. Unincorporated, that is a T1 with the business schedule. Incorporated, a T2 and its schedules.
All of it assumes a finished set of books. Where they are not finished, the first step of the return is bookkeeping, quoted as its own number before we start.
The year in between
Books assembled once a year are accurate once a year. For the other eleven months there is no margin to read, no receivable aging to chase, and no way to know what to set aside for tax.
A year-end return shows the problem after the year it happened in has closed, when little can still be done about it.
What the books do to the year-end price
The size of the year-end job depends almost entirely on what arrives. A set of books closed monthly, reconciled and categorized is a different piece of work from an unsorted year, and it is priced like one.
Monthly bookkeeping is a cost that lowers the year-end cost. How far depends on where you are starting from.
What we take on
Monthly and at year end
What we take on monthly
Bookkeeping: we categorize the transactions, reconcile the accounts, close the month, and send you the statements.
Sales tax filed for you — GST to the CRA, PST to the province — on whichever reporting periods each has assigned you.
Payroll, source deductions, T4s and ROEs, and the WorkSafeBC filing.
Catch-up on old books: we work out how far behind things are and quote a total before starting.
What we take on at year end
T1 personal returns for sole proprietors and the self-employed, business schedule included, prepared from books kept through the year.
T2 corporate returns for CCPCs and their schedules, prepared from books that were closed monthly. Where it applies, the shareholder’s personal return is handled alongside the company’s.
One firm doing both halves means the year-end return does not begin by learning your business or rebuilding your year.
If someone else already does your year end
Then we do the monthly half only. Once the year closes we hand over the closed books, the statements and whatever reconciliations they ask for, direct to them.
If they have questions, they can put them to us. Why a payment eleven months ago was what it was is our record to explain.
More on what the monthly work covers, and how the plans are scoped.
Not sure which one you need?
Tell us where your books stand. Your written quote says which you need.