Bookkeeping services for Victoria small businesses
Published on Published
Tourism and hospitality, technology, businesses that sell to government, and a great many home offices, with the books done online from the mainland.
Short answer: we keep the books for Victoria small businesses: monthly bookkeeping, GST and PST, payroll with T4s and ROEs, and T1 and T2 returns, for a fixed monthly fee. The work is done online from West Vancouver, so the ferry never comes into it, and the quote arrives in writing within one business day.
What we do for Victoria businesses
- Monthly bookkeeping, reconciled and closed every month
- GST and PST, including accommodation taxes and PST on software
- Seasonal payroll for tourism and hospitality, T4s and ROEs
- Receivables tracked for customers on long payment terms
- T1 and T2 returns from the books we kept
What is different about the books here
Victoria mixes tourism, technology and businesses that sell to government. Tourism brings accommodation, which is taxed differently from most services, and seasonal staff who start in spring and leave in autumn. Technology brings software, which can carry BC PST depending on how it is sold and to whom. Selling to government brings long payment terms, so the books have to show what is owed to you and when it is due, or a profitable business can still run short of cash.
Your Victoria business licence
A home-based business must be licensed in the municipality where it is located, and in the City of Victoria that applies even if the business is online, when the home is its main place of business. The applicant must live at the address and be the only person doing the business there. Up to three home occupation licences can be registered to one address, but only one of them may receive clients. A licence takes about ten working days once the application is complete. An eligible mobile business can add the Inter-Municipal Business Licence, which covers the 13 municipalities of the Capital Regional District and is bought from the municipality where the business office is. A wider inter-community licence covers participating communities across Vancouver Island.
Questions Victoria owners ask
Do I need a licence for an online business run from my Victoria home?
Yes, if the home is the business’s main place of business. The City of Victoria licenses home-based businesses even when the work is online.
Can one licence cover the whole Capital Region?
For an eligible mobile business, the Inter-Municipal Business Licence covers the 13 municipalities of the Capital Regional District, bought from the municipality where your business office is.
Does my software or SaaS product carry PST?
It can. BC applies PST to software in many cases, depending on how it is delivered and to whom. The software PST guide sets out the rules.
Do you work with Victoria businesses without meeting in person?
Yes. Everything is online: the accounting file, receipts from a phone and returns filed electronically, at the same price as anywhere else we work.
Short-term rentals: the tax rules →
Get a written quote
Tell us where you are, roughly how many transactions a month and what you need filed. A written scope and a fixed monthly price follow within one business day.
info@orbisaccounting.ca