Practical bookkeeping and tax guidance for Canadian small businesses and real estate investors.
July is when tax planning is cheap. Six things Canadian business owners and investors should review now, while there's still time for the answers to change your outcome.
The difference between accrual and cash accounting in one example, what CRA generally expects from businesses, and why accrual gives truer monthly numbers.
Flipping profit is business income while long-term holds earn capital gains. How the CRA decides which is which, and what your books need to show.
DIY bookkeeping looks free. Three true stories from our tax files about what it actually costs — missed refunds, misallocated renovations, and a joint-venture split gone wrong.
A monthly P&L review takes ten minutes when you know where to look. The five numbers that tell Canadian business owners what's actually happening.
What a chart of accounts is, why too many categories hurt as much as too few, and how to structure yours around the decisions you actually make.
Most personally-held rentals are tracked with an income-and-expenses spreadsheet. That's half the story — and the missing half is where the expensive mistakes hide.
Personal versus corporate ownership for Canadian rentals - liability, financing realities, passive income rules, and the cost of moving properties in.
The contract label doesn't decide worker status — the CRA's tests do. Control, tools, risk, and integration, plus what misclassification really costs.
The most common record-keeping mistakes we see in rental property books — and what a CRA-ready paper trail actually looks like.
Deduction now or tax-free later? How Canadian business owners should choose between RRSP and TFSA — including the corporate wrinkle most guides skip.
Salary builds RRSP room and CPP; dividends keep things simple. How incorporated Canadian business owners should weigh the mix — and why it changes yearly.
Capital cost allowance can shelter rental income today, but recapture can claw it back at sale. How to think through whether claiming CCA makes sense.
What bank reconciliation actually is, what it catches — missed transactions, duplicates, fraud, bank errors — and why monthly beats yearly every time.
How the CRA separates repairs from improvements, the factors that decide capital versus current expenses, and why misclassifying them invites a review.
How rental cash flow can help pay down non-deductible debt faster — and why the cash flow dam strategy lives or dies on account separation and tracing.
How the $30,000 small-supplier threshold actually works, what counts as taxable supplies, and when registering for GST/HST early works in your favour.
Is the Smith Manoeuvre legal? What makes the interest deductible? Eight questions Canadian homeowners ask us most about the strategy, in plain English.
What the T776 form is, how gross and net rental income differ, which expenses belong where, and how co-owners split the numbers on their returns.
Incorporation offers liability protection and tax deferral — but only in the right conditions. The real signals it's time, and when a sole prop wins.
