Bookkeeping for New Westminster businesses
A café on Columbia Street, a shop near Sixth Street and a renovation crew based in Queensborough all need the same thing: books that are current every month, with GST and PST that tie to them. EverStone keeps those books for New Westminster businesses remotely, from Abbotsford, at a fixed monthly fee.
Quick answer: Monthly bookkeeping for a New Westminster business starts from $300 a month, with the GST return and the BC PST return both included. Bank and card accounts are reconciled every month, payroll entries are posted as they happen, and the same CPA who keeps the books prepares the year-end. Documents come in through a secure upload link.
Two sales taxes, two sets of codes
A BC ledger carries two sales taxes that behave differently. GST at 5% is reported to the CRA, and the GST you pay on business purchases comes back as input tax credits. PST at 7% is reported to the BC Ministry of Finance on its own return. PST you pay on your own purchases is generally a cost, not a credit.
So the software needs separate tax codes for each, on both the sales and the purchase side. A single combined code makes the GST return impossible to tie back to invoices. Setting the codes correctly is the first job on any new file. The input tax credits guide explains what is recoverable.
Daily sales on a busy street
Restaurants and shops on Columbia Street, East Columbia in Sapperton and around Sixth Street in Uptown sell every day, and the books are built from that day’s point-of-sale report. We post one summary entry per day: sales by category, GST, PST, tips and payment type. Card settlements are matched to it a day or two later, with processor fees recorded gross rather than netted out.
Delivery platforms get the same treatment. Record the full sale and the commission as an expense, not just the deposit that lands. Otherwise sales are understated and a real cost disappears. Cash variances show up by day, while someone still remembers the shift.
Jobs that cross the river
Contractors based in New Westminster rarely work only there. A job in Burnaby, a strata repair in Coquitlam and a renovation in Surrey can all run in the same month. Bookkeeping for a trade business means job costing: each invoice, material purchase and subcontractor bill tagged to the project it belongs to.
Two BC details matter here. PST is generally paid on the materials a contractor installs into real property, so it belongs in job cost. And payments to subcontractors are tracked through the year for the T5018 slip. See contractor accounting in New Westminster.
Rent, strata fees and the home office
Many New Westminster owners run their business from a condo or an older house rather than a storefront. The home office then needs a consistent allocation: a share of rent or mortgage interest, strata fees, utilities and insurance, based on the space used. In a corporation that is usually handled as a reimbursement, recorded monthly rather than guessed at year-end.
Vehicle costs work the same way. A log of business kilometres supports the claim, and a mileage log kept as you go is far easier than one rebuilt from memory.
Payroll entries and the year-end slips
Every pay run creates more than a wage expense. We post the employer share of CPP and EI premiums, accrue WorkSafeBC premiums as wages are paid, and reconcile the payroll liability accounts to the CRA statement each month. When February arrives, the T4 slips agree with the books. See payroll services in New Westminster.
The shareholder loan account, kept current
Owner-managed companies pay personal costs from the business card more often than anyone admits. Each one belongs in the shareholder loan account. A balance owed to the company that is not repaid within one year after the year-end is generally taxed as your income. Coding those amounts monthly keeps the balance visible while you can still deal with it. The shareholder loan tracker shows the running position, and the year-end flows into the T2 for your New Westminster company.
If the books are already months behind, a catch-up comes first.
Cloud software, and who owns the file
The books live in cloud accounting software under your own subscription and your own login. EverStone works inside that file; it is not held on our side. If you ever change accountants, the ledger stays with you, complete and reconciled to the last month closed.
Bank and credit card feeds bring transactions in daily. Receipts are photographed on a phone and matched to the feed, so the paper can be filed away. Supplier bills and customer invoices can sit in the same file, which lets you see who owes you money without asking anyone.
Each month closes the same way. Every bank and card account is reconciled to its statement. The GST and PST control accounts are checked against what was filed. Payroll liabilities are tied to the CRA and WorkSafeBC balances. Then you get a short profit and loss and balance sheet, with a note on anything that looks out of line. The month-end close page lists every step, and the monthly checklist is a one-page version.
Clean monthly books also make the GST filing period easier to live with. Annual filers with revenue of $1.5 million or less can set the tax aside monthly, so the single payment never comes as a shock. Quarterly filers, up to $6 million, see the same benefit on a shorter cycle.
The same discipline helps at year-end. When the last month closes, the books go straight into the T2 or the T2125 without a separate clean-up. The adjustments a CPA makes at year-end, such as CCA, accruals and the shareholder loan, are then the only entries left.
Prepared and reviewed by a Chartered Professional Accountant at EverStone CPA, an Abbotsford CPA firm working remotely with small businesses and incorporated owners in British Columbia. Updated . About the firm · Send an enquiry
What gets done, and when
| Cadence | What we do |
|---|---|
| Monthly | Transactions categorised, bank and credit card accounts reconciled, source documents filed |
| Each filing period | GST return to the CRA and PST return to the BC Ministry of Finance |
| Annually | Books closed and handed clean to the year-end file |
| Ongoing | Payroll entries, WorkSafeBC accruals and owner draws tracked |
| Sales tax where you operate | 5% GST plus 7% BC PST: two registrations, two returns |
Source: How often to do the books. General information, not advice.
New Westminster bookkeeping questions
What does monthly bookkeeping cost for a New Westminster business?+
Which software do you use?+
Do I need to register for PST as well as GST?+
How often do I send documents?+
Can you take over books that are behind?+
Do you work with businesses outside New Westminster itself?+
Related services and local guides
Nearby cities, the rest of what we do for New Westminster businesses, and the reference pages behind this one.
Keeping books in New Westminster?
Get GST, BC PST, payroll entries and the monthly close handled by one CPA, at a fixed monthly fee.
Remote bookkeeping from Abbotsford
EverStone keeps New Westminster books virtually, from a base in Abbotsford. There is no New Westminster office, and nobody on the ground there. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically, receipts and statements come in through a secure upload link, and questions are answered by email or video. The file lives in cloud software you can open at any time.
Talk to a CPA about this
One Chartered Professional Accountant, start to finish. Fixed fees, quoted in writing before any work begins, and no obligation from a first conversation.
