Bookkeeping for Selkirk businesses

For tax and year-end work as well, see our small business accountant in Selkirk page.

The books feed every filing that follows: the T2 or T2125, the GST/HST return and its input tax credits, the CCA schedule and the CRA instalments.

What Selkirk books usually look like when they arrive

Most Selkirk businesses that come to us are not in trouble; they are just behind. A contractor who did the books in a spreadsheet until the season got busy. A shop owner whose accounting software has been importing bank transactions for a year without anyone reconciling them. A home-based business in St. Clements whose receipts live in a phone camera roll. The City of Selkirk points to steady growth in its business and industrial areas, and a growing business is exactly the one whose books fall behind first, because the owner’s time goes to the work. We bring the file current, set up a monthly routine, and keep it there.

Two taxes, two different fates

Manitoba charges 7% retail sales tax alongside the 5% GST. RST is administered by Manitoba Finance rather than the CRA, has its own registration and is filed on its own returns. The difference that matters in the ledger is what happens to the tax you pay. GST paid on purchases is generally recovered as an input tax credit and never touches the income statement. RST paid on purchases is generally a real cost that belongs inside the expense or asset it applied to. Coding both into one sales tax account overstates what is coming back, understates what things cost, and makes neither return reconcile.

The tax nobody charged you

The RST provision that produces most unwelcome assessments is self-assessment. Where taxable goods are brought into Manitoba for use in the business and the supplier did not charge RST — routine when parts, tools or equipment are bought online, from another province or from another country — the obligation to remit falls on the purchaser. Nothing on the invoice says so. A Selkirk business buying welding supplies, shop equipment or software from out of province can build up an unrecorded liability over years, and it usually surfaces during a provincial review. The only reliable prevention is a coding rule: every out-of-province purchase is checked for RST when it is entered, not at year-end.

Bookkeeping for trades and contractors

Residential growth around Selkirk keeps a lot of trades busy, and their books have specific needs. Jobs should be tracked so revenue and costs can be matched; holdbacks retained by customers need recording as receivables rather than disappearing; subcontractor payments need to be captured with enough detail to produce T5018 slips at year-end; and vehicle and equipment costs need separating from personal use. RST adds a layer, because whether a contractor charges or pays RST depends on whether materials are sold or installed into real property. Our contractor accountant in Selkirk page covers the tax side.

Bookkeeping for shops that hold stock

Fabrication shops, metal suppliers and retailers all hold real inventory, and the inventory balance has to be something the business can stand behind rather than a figure carried forward from last year. That means purchases coded to inventory rather than expensed, adjustments recorded when stock is written off, inbound freight on goods for resale treated as part of their cost, and a valuation basis applied consistently. The closing figure feeds directly into taxable income, so a number nobody can support is a weakness in the corporate return as well as in the management reporting. Year-end inventory counts sets out what the record has to show.

Payroll and the shareholder account

Where there are employees, the payroll journal has to agree with the remittances sent to the CRA and the T4s at year-end; differences found in February are much harder to explain than differences found in the month they happened. The other account that needs watching in an owner-managed business is the shareholder loan. Personal costs paid from the business account and business costs paid personally both belong there, and a monthly review keeps it from turning into a year-end argument. Payroll itself is covered on payroll services in Selkirk.

Closing each month so the year-end is short

A monthly close in a Manitoba file has a specific list: bank and card accounts reconciled, GST and RST accounts agreed separately, self-assessment reviewed on any out-of-province purchases, inventory adjustments posted, payroll tied to remittances, and the shareholder account checked for anything personal. Done monthly it takes an hour or two. Deferred, each item becomes a research project across twelve months of transactions, and the RST review in particular is very difficult once nobody remembers where a piece of equipment came from. A month-end close checklist sets out the order.

Online, with no Selkirk office

EverStone is a fully virtual, one-CPA firm. There is no Selkirk office and no local staff. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically, supplier invoices and receipts are captured by upload, and the file lives in cloud accounting software that you hold your own login to. Because the same CPA keeps the books and prepares the T2 or T2125, the GST return and the RST return, nothing is lost between the bookkeeping and the tax work.

Where the decisions have outgrown the reporting, fractional CFO work in Selkirk is the next step.

Keeping the books accurately and knowing what they mean are different jobs, and it is worth being deliberate about which level of finance support you actually need.