Bookkeeping for St. Catharines businesses

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.

HST coded once, and claimed in full

An Ontario business has one sales-tax account: 13% HST charged and HST paid on purchases net on a single return, with the provincial part recoverable like the federal. The work is coding: card receipts with no tax split, out-of-province supplier invoices and personal purchases through the business account are where claims go missing or wrong.

Your filing period follows revenue: annual up to $1.5 million of taxable sales, quarterly up to $6 million, monthly above. A farm with mostly zero-rated sales often files for refunds, a reason to file more often. Input tax credits explains what can be claimed.

Sales that arrive through several doors

A Lincoln winery or St. Paul Street restaurant rarely has one revenue stream: POS terminal, a card processor depositing net of fees, an online store, a scheduled wine club, gift cards and a delivery platform paying weekly after commission. No deposit equals a day’s sales.

We book sales gross, record fees and commissions as expenses, and reconcile each clearing account to zero monthly. Then margins mean something and HST is reported on the right figure. See restaurant accounting in St. Catharines and winery accounting in St. Catharines for industry detail.

Inventory that is counted, not estimated

Wine in tank and bottle, packaging, fabricated parts, raw steel and bagged product all sit on a balance sheet at year-end, and the closing figure moves profit dollar for dollar. We agree a count date with you, set the valuation method once and apply it the same way each year. For a manufacturer or processor the monthly ledger also keeps purchases separate from production costs, so the year-end cost of goods sold is a calculation rather than a plug. The year-end inventory count sets out what the CRA expects to see.

Between counts, the ledger still helps. A contractor carrying materials for several jobs, or a greenhouse holding growing media and containers, benefits from a simple record of stock bought and used. At the count, any gap between book and shelf is worth asking about, not quietly adjusted.

A monthly close, even in the quiet months

Seasonal businesses are tempted to let January and February slide. Those months are the most useful: they show what the season earned, the fixed costs when revenue stops, and how much cash must last until spring.

A monthly close means reconciled accounts, reviewed receivables and payables, and short readable statements, ready when a lender or buyer asks. What a month-end close covers walks through the steps; why reconciliation matters explains the one that catches the most errors.

Payroll entries and the Ontario accounts beside them

Payroll does not end at net pay. Each run creates a CRA source-deduction liability and, in Ontario, possibly employer health tax and a WSIB premium, each owed to a different body on its own schedule. We record all three as they arise, so the ledger shows what is owed, and accrue employer health tax through the year when payroll nears the exemption. Payroll in St. Catharines covers running it.

Owner draws get the same care. Money taken from a corporation is salary, a dividend, repayment of the owner’s loan, or a shareholder loan to clear within a year after year-end. Recording each correctly when it happens beats reconstructing a year of transfers at tax time.

Books behind? Starting from where they are

If the last reconciled month was a year ago, the fix is methodical: update bank and card accounts, rebuild the HST position, file anything outstanding, then go monthly. Catch-up work explains the order. We work in your existing cloud ledger or help you choose; QuickBooks or Xero compares the two. You keep your own login.

Receipts matter too. A same-day photo sent by secure upload beats an April shoebox: the CRA expects records kept six years, and thermal receipts fade.

Remote bookkeeping

EverStone is a fully virtual CPA firm serving St. Catharines online. There is no St. Catharines office and no local staff. Meetings are by video or phone, documents by secure upload and e-signature, with no visits. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically; receipts can come from a phone.