Bookkeeping for Halifax businesses

A 14% ledger since April 2025

Nova Scotia’s HST fell from 15% to 14% on April 1, 2025. For most Halifax businesses the change has settled in, but the tax codes in the software were not always updated on the day, and invoices that straddled the date were not always coded to the rate that actually applied. A ledger that still has a 15% code sitting in the default settings will quietly overstate what is owed on sales and misstate the credits on purchases. The first thing we check on a new Halifax file is that every sales and purchase code points to the right rate for the period. We also check that the last return before the change and the first one after it were reconciled to the books. Input tax credits explains what is recoverable.

Selling into the rest of Atlantic Canada

A Halifax business does not have to travel far to sell at a different rate. A delivery to Moncton, a service contract in Charlottetown or goods shipped to St. John’s generally carry 15% HST under the place-of-supply rules, not the Nova Scotia 14%. It is still one registration and one return, but it needs a separate tax code for each rate, or the return will not match the invoices. The place-of-supply rules decide which rate applies, and the Atlantic Canada tax facts page keeps the four rates side by side.

The purchase side needs the same care. A supplier in Moncton will usually charge you 15%, and that full amount is recoverable as an input tax credit, so coding it at 14% understates the credit rather than the cost. Online subscriptions billed from outside Canada are a third case again, and whether HST was charged at all decides how they are coded.

Seasonal revenue, monthly books

Halifax runs on seasons. Cruise ships and summer visitors fill the waterfront from spring into the fall, the fishery works to its own openings and closings, and construction slows in the coldest months. Revenue arriving in a few strong months makes monthly books more useful, not less, because the HST collected in August has to still be there when the return is due. Your filing period is assigned by revenue: annual at $1.5 million or less, quarterly up to $6 million, monthly above that. An annual filer with a big summer can find the whole year’s tax due in one payment. Managing a seasonal business covers setting it aside.

Payroll entries with no provincial payroll tax

Nova Scotia has no employer health tax or payroll levy, which keeps the payroll side of a Halifax ledger simpler than in Ontario or British Columbia. What it does have is the Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia, and assessable payroll drives that premium. We record the employer share of CPP and EI with every pay run and accrue the WCB premium as wages are paid. We reconcile the payroll liability accounts to the CRA statement monthly, so the T4s agree with the books when February arrives. Payroll in Halifax covers the running of it.

The registry renewal that is not a tax filing

A Nova Scotia company renews its registration each year with the Registry of Joint Stock Companies and pays a renewal fee. That is a corporate-law filing, not a tax one, and it never arrives in CRA mail, so owners who rely on the CRA to remind them miss it. A clean federal record says nothing about whether the company is in good standing at home. We keep the renewal on the same calendar as the year end, the T2 and the HST return. Deadline reminders can send you the dates as well.

The shareholder loan account, kept current

Owner-managed Halifax companies pay personal costs from the business card more often than anyone admits. Each one belongs in the shareholder loan account, and a balance owed by you to the company that is not repaid within one year after the year end is generally taxed as your income. Coding those amounts monthly, rather than finding them at year end, keeps the balance visible while there is still time to deal with it. The shareholder loan tracker shows the running position.

How Halifax industries use the books

The same monthly close looks different in each of the city’s main trades. A fishing enterprise may report on the cash method and sell a catch that is zero-rated, so it often files for refunds of the HST paid on fuel and gear; see fishing and seafood accounting. A contractor needs job costing and holdbacks tracked by project; see contractor accounting in Halifax. A restaurant reconciles the point-of-sale system to the bank every day it trades; see restaurant accounting. A tech startup needs payroll split by project if it will claim SR&ED, and a realtor needs commissions matched to brokerage statements.

Remote, from Abbotsford

Nothing about a Halifax set of books depends on being in the city. HST is administered by the CRA and Nova Scotia corporate tax is collected on the federal T2. EverStone is a one-CPA firm at 32615 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford, British Columbia, serving Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford and Sackville remotely. There is no Halifax office. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically, documents come in through a secure upload link, and the file sits in cloud accounting software that you hold your own login to. Meetings are booked in Atlantic time.

Where the decisions have outgrown the reporting, a fractional controller is the next step. If the books are months behind, a bookkeeping catch-up comes first.