Bookkeeping for Oshawa businesses

One HST account, and a filing period set by revenue

Ontario harmonised its sales tax with the GST, so an Oshawa ledger carries one 13% HST account instead of two taxes. The provincial part is recoverable through input tax credits in the same way as the federal part. That makes clean coding worth money: every supplier bill with HST on it is a credit you can claim, and every missing receipt is one you cannot.

How often you file depends on revenue. Businesses with $1.5 million or less in annual taxable sales are assigned annual filing, those up to $6 million file quarterly, and larger ones file monthly. Many smaller Durham businesses choose to file more often than required, because a quarterly return keeps the balance small and the refunds on equipment purchases arrive sooner. Input tax credits explains what can be claimed.

Progress draws and holdbacks in a contractor’s books

Durham’s steady run of new subdivisions means many ledgers here belong to trades and builders, and their books need two things a retail ledger does not. First, progress billing: each draw is invoiced as work reaches a stage, and HST on that draw is generally payable when the invoice is issued or paid, whichever comes first. Second, the 10% holdback the Ontario Construction Act allows the payer to retain. That money is earned but not yet collected, so it belongs in its own receivable account rather than disappearing from the books until it arrives.

Recorded properly, the holdback receivable tells you exactly how much cash is tied up in finished jobs. Recorded as nothing, it turns up as a surprise deposit months later that nobody can match to an invoice. Contractor accounting in Oshawa goes further into the tax side.

Inventory and parts for shops and suppliers

Oshawa’s automotive history left a base of machine shops, fabricators and parts suppliers, and their ledgers turn on inventory. Raw material, work in progress and finished goods are recorded separately, so the cost of what was sold in a month is a real number rather than whatever was paid to suppliers that month. We reconcile the inventory accounts to your count, record the adjustments, and flag when margins move in a way the job quotes did not predict. Year-end counts are easier when the monthly figures have been reasonable all along; the year-end inventory count covers what the count needs to include.

Payroll, WSIB and Employer Health Tax as they accrue

Payroll touches the ledger every pay run. Gross wages, CPP, EI and income tax withheld, the employer’s share, and the remittance to the CRA all need their own accounts, or the liability never reconciles to what was actually paid. Ontario adds WSIB premiums, which most Durham trades and manufacturers pay, and Employer Health Tax once total Ontario payroll passes the exemption. EHT is an employer cost, and a business expecting to cross the exemption during the year is better off accruing it monthly than meeting it as a single charge. Current EHT figures sit on the Ontario tax facts page. If you want payroll run as well as recorded, see payroll services in Oshawa.

The month-end close, and the shareholder loan

A month is closed when every bank and credit card account agrees to its statement, the HST account agrees to what was filed, and anything the owner took or paid personally has been posted to the shareholder loan account. That last account matters most in an owner-run Durham company. A personal truck payment or grocery run on the company card is not an expense; it is money owed to or by you. A balance you owe the company that is not repaid within one year after the year-end is generally taxed as your income, so it has to be visible every month rather than discovered at year-end. Why bank reconciliation matters sets out the rest of the close.

Point-of-sale days and commission cheques

Not every Durham ledger is built around jobs and parts. A restaurant’s books start with the daily point-of-sale report, which has to be split into card settlements, cash deposits, tips owed to staff and HST collected, then matched to what actually reached the bank a day or two later. Delivery app payouts arrive net of fees, so the gross sale and the fee are both recorded rather than the deposit alone. Restaurant accounting in Oshawa covers that routine. A realtor’s books are almost the opposite: few transactions, large irregular commission deposits, and HST on each one. There the monthly work is matching each commission statement from the brokerage to its deposit, and keeping car and marketing costs documented. See realtor accounting in Oshawa.

Remote, from Abbotsford

EverStone keeps Oshawa books from Abbotsford, British Columbia. The ledger sits in cloud accounting software that you own and can log into at any time. Bank and card feeds come in electronically, and receipts and statements arrive through a secure upload link, often straight from a phone. If the books are months or years behind, catch-up bookkeeping brings them current first, then the monthly routine takes over. The CPA who keeps the ledger prepares the corporate year-end from it, so nothing is rebuilt at year-end.

Remote bookkeeping for Oshawa from Abbotsford

Bookkeeping for Oshawa and Durham Region businesses is delivered remotely from Abbotsford, British Columbia. There is no Oshawa office and no local team. Feeds arrive electronically, documents come through a secure upload link, and the CPA keeping your books is the one you talk to.