Bookkeeping for Saanich businesses

Monthly bookkeeping for Saanich businesses starts from $300 a month, with the GST and PST returns handled in the same package. The books then feed every filing that follows: the T2 or the T2125, the input tax credits on the GST return, the CCA schedule and any CRA instalments.

A home office is not a separate business account

A large share of Saanich businesses run from a house: a consultant in Gordon Head, a tutor in Cadboro Bay, a designer above the garage in Royal Oak. The common bookkeeping problem is not the home office deduction itself. It is that business and household spending run through the same chequing account and the same credit card.

The fix is dull and effective. Open a business account, pay business costs from it, and move money to yourself as a draw, a salary or a dividend. Where a shared card is unavoidable, the personal charges are posted to the owner’s account monthly rather than sorted out in April. Our guide to separating business and personal finances covers the set-up.

Farm-gate cash, e-transfers and market days

The peninsula has a long tradition of selling at the gate: an honour box at the end of a lane, a stand in the Blenkinsop Valley, a table at a summer market. Those sales arrive as coins, small bills, e-transfers and the odd tap payment through a phone reader. None of them comes with an invoice.

A daily or weekly sales log is the record. It ties the cash counted to the deposits made, and the e-transfers to the bank statement. Card readers settle net of their fees, so the gross sale and the fee are recorded separately, through a clearing account that should return to nil. When it does not, something is missing, and you find out that week rather than at year-end.

Zero-rated, taxable and exempt in one ledger

Many Saanich businesses sell a mix. A farm sells vegetables and eggs, which are generally zero-rated for GST, alongside cut flowers or a prepared jam that may be taxable. A café sells food with GST and liquor with GST and PST. A renovation contractor pays PST on the materials it installs and charges GST on the whole job.

Each kind of sale gets its own revenue account and its own tax code. Zero-rated sales still let you claim input tax credits on the costs behind them, which exempt sales do not. Coding them correctly once is what makes the GST return a report rather than a reconstruction. The zero-rated versus exempt guide explains the difference.

PST is a cost on most purchases

British Columbia charges 7% PST as a separate tax with its own registration and returns, administered by the province. On the purchasing side, the PST a business pays on equipment, software and supplies is generally not recoverable. It belongs in the cost of the asset or the expense, not in a receivable. The province’s PST pages set out what is taxable.

Businesses that collect PST, such as retailers, liquor-licensed cafés and contractors who sell goods separately, need a PST payable account kept apart from GST. Combining the two makes both returns unreliable and hides an underpayment until an audit finds it. Current rates are on the BC tax facts page.

A year that earns most of its money in summer

Tourism traffic toward the peninsula’s gardens and the ferry terminal, the growing season and the outdoor building season all peak between late spring and early autumn. For many Saanich businesses the bank balance in August says little about February. Monthly books show the pattern while it can still be planned for.

The practical step is to set aside GST, PST and payroll deductions as they are collected, in a separate account, so the busy months do not fund the quiet ones with money that belongs to government. The seasonal cash flow guide walks through it.

Behind on the books

If the last reconciled month was some time ago, the books are rebuilt from bank and card statements first, then receipts are matched, then the GST and PST returns are checked against the result. Catch-up work is quoted as a fixed fee before it starts, separately from the monthly engagement that follows.

Catch-up work matters most when a deadline is close. A sole proprietor with a December year-end files the T1 and T2125 by June 15 but owes any balance by April 30. An annual GST filer that is a corporation files three months after year-end. Records have to be kept for six years, so the rebuilt books become the file the CRA would ask for. If a notice has already arrived, getting caught up on taxes explains the order to work in.

Trades and job costing

For a Saanich renovation or landscaping business, the ledger needs a job dimension as well as accounts. Materials, subtrades and labour are tagged to the job they belong to, so the margin on a bathroom in Royal Oak can be compared with the margin on a deck in Cordova Bay. That is the information that sets next season’s prices. See accounting for Saanich contractors.

Remote bookkeeping from Abbotsford

EverStone is a one-CPA firm based in Abbotsford, serving Saanich entirely online. There is no Saanich office and no local staff. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically, receipts come in through a secure upload link, and the person reconciling your accounts is the CPA who prepares the year-end return from them. Once you have employees, payroll in Saanich runs from the same file.