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Demo

Harlow & Pike is a fictional practice, written to show the Balance template. The reviews, prices and people on this page are demo content.

Lever-arch files and a calculator on a tidy office desk.
Toronto

Books that arealways current.

Monthly bookkeeping, payroll and year-end accounts for Ontario small businesses. Fixed monthly fees published below, and a real person who answers when the CRA writes to you.

  • Fixed monthly fee
  • Cloud or shoebox, both fine
Billing
Fixed monthly, no hourly surprises
Turnaround
Books closed by the 15th
Year end
Filed four weeks before the deadline
CRA letters
Answered by us, included

Why people move to us

  • The number does not move

    A fixed monthly fee agreed at the start. No hourly billing, no surprise invoice in April, and no charge for phoning to ask a question.

  • Books closed by the fifteenth

    Every month, not in a rush at year end. You get a two-page summary you can actually read, not a trial balance.

  • We answer the CRA

    Letters, reviews and audits are handled by us as part of the monthly fee. That is where an accountant earns their keep.

  • Your data stays yours

    Your accounting file is in your name, not ours. If you ever leave, you take it with you the same week and we help the next firm pick it up.

Services

What we do

Every month

  • Bookkeeping and reconciliation

    Bank, credit card and merchant accounts reconciled to the statement. Closed by the fifteenth of the following month.

  • Payroll

    Including source deductions, remittances, records of employment and the year-end slips.

  • Sales tax

    HST prepared and filed on your reporting cycle, with the instalments calculated rather than guessed.

Every year

  • Corporate year-end accounts

    Financial statements and the corporate return, filed four weeks before the deadline rather than four days.

  • Personal returns for owners

    Included for the owners in the Established and Growing packages, because the two are not separable in a small company.

  • Salary and dividend planning

    The conversation that actually saves money, held in the autumn when it can still change something.

When you need it

  • Catch-up bookkeeping

    For businesses two or three years behind. It is more common than you think and it is fixable.

  • CRA correspondence and reviews

    Included in every monthly package rather than billed as a crisis.

  • Incorporation and setup

    Including registering for the accounts you actually need and not the ones you do not.

We work in whatever system you already use, and we are equally happy with a cloud ledger or a carrier bag of receipts. Migrating you to something better is a conversation for month three, not month one.

Packages

Fixed monthly pricing

Published, in Canadian dollars, plus HST. Everything in a package is included, including the phone calls.

Fixed monthly pricing
PackagePer month
Sole traderBookkeeping, HST, and the personal return. Up to 75 transactions a month.
$260
EstablishedIncorporated. Bookkeeping, HST, payroll to five people, year-end accounts and two personal returns.
$620
GrowingEverything in Established, payroll to twenty, quarterly management accounts and a planning meeting each autumn.
$1,150
Catch-up workOne-off, priced per year behind, and always quoted before we start.
From $900

Prices are per month excluding HST and are held for twelve months from signing. If your transaction volume outgrows a package we will tell you and move you up, which has happened forty-odd times and has never once been a surprise invoice.

Get a quote
Key dates

The Ontario small business calendar

The recurring deadlines, in order. Clients get these as calendar invitations rather than as a page they have to remember to read.

  • Source deduction remittancePayroll deductions for the previous month, for regular remitters
    15th monthly
  • T4 and T5 slipsIssued to employees and shareholders, and filed
    28 February
  • RRSP contribution deadlineFor the previous tax year
    1 March
  • Personal tax returnFor individuals who are not self-employed
    30 April
  • Balance owing on personal taxPayable by this date even if the return is filed later
    30 April
  • Self-employed personal returnFiling deadline, though any balance was due 30 April
    15 June
  • Corporate tax balanceTwo months after year end for most small corporations
    Year end + 2 months
  • Corporate return filingSix months after year end
    Year end + 6 months

These are the recurring Canadian federal deadlines and they are given here because a wrong date on an accountant's page costs a client a penalty, which makes this the one band in this catalog where invented content would do real harm. They still must be checked against the current year before this template is published: dates falling on a weekend or a holiday shift, and provincial and industry obligations sit on top of these.

Industries

Who we work with

Not everybody. A bookkeeper who claims every sector has not seen enough of any of them to spot what is wrong.

Most of our clients

  • Trades and construction subcontractors
  • Restaurants, cafés and small food businesses
  • Professional services under twenty people
  • Retail with a physical location
  • Owner-operated e-commerce

We also handle

  • Rental property owners with several units
  • Registered charities and small not-for-profits
  • Consultants incorporating for the first time
  • Businesses two or three years behind

We would refer you on

  • Anything requiring an audit opinion
  • Cross-border US filings
  • Businesses over about fifty staff
  • Cryptocurrency trading as a primary activity

The last column is the useful one. We hold licences and insurance for the work we do, and telling you at the first meeting that somebody else should do yours is cheaper for both of us than finding out in March.

Questions

Before you switch

How hard is it to change accountants?

Easier than people expect. We write to your current firm, they send the file, and you sign one authorisation for the CRA. Most switches take under two weeks and you do almost nothing.

We are two years behind. Is that a problem?

It is common and it is fixable. We quote catch-up work separately, always before starting, and there is no lecture included in the price.

Do you charge for phone calls?

No. Hourly billing for questions is what stops clients asking them, and the unasked question is what causes the expensive problem.

What if the CRA reviews us?

We handle the correspondence as part of the monthly fee. A full audit involving a dispute is quoted separately, and we will tell you at the outset if it is heading that way.

Which software do you use?

Whichever you already use. If it is genuinely holding you back we will say so around month three, once we can show you what it is costing rather than just assert it.

Quote

Get a fixed quote

Tell us the shape of the business and we come back within two working days with a package and a monthly number, not a range.

Call instead if

  • You have a deadline in the next fortnight
  • The CRA has written to you and you are not sure what it says
  • You are several years behind and would rather explain it out loud
(416) 555 0192

We reply within two working days with a package and a monthly figure. Your details are used to prepare the quote and for nothing else.