Bookkeeping for White Rock businesses

Monthly bookkeeping for White Rock businesses starts from $300 a month, with GST and PST filing included in the fee. The books feed every filing that follows: the T2 or the T2125, the GST return and its input tax credits, the CCA schedule and any CRA instalments.

A summer on Marine Drive, and the months either side

When the beach and the promenade fill up, the restaurants and shops along Marine Drive and up the hill do a large share of their year. Then the evenings shorten and the same tills go quiet. Books kept once a year flatten that pattern into a single number. Books kept monthly show which months carried the business, what labour cost in July against what it cost in February, and how much cash the summer has to leave behind.

We close each month within a few weeks of its end, so a slow October is visible in November rather than at the next tax deadline. Monthly or annual bookkeeping compares the two cadences.

Summer is also paid for in advance. Wedding and group bookings, patio events and contractor deposits for spring work often arrive months before the thing they pay for. A deposit is not revenue until the event or the job happens. We hold deposits in a liability account and release them when they are earned, so the spring does not look rich and the summer weak.

US dollars, a few minutes from the border

The peninsula backs onto the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway border crossings, and plenty of local businesses buy from American suppliers, sell to American customers or keep a US dollar bank account. An invoice raised in US dollars and paid weeks later is two Canadian amounts, not one. The sale goes in at the rate on the invoice date, the receipt at the rate on the day the money lands, and the difference is a foreign exchange gain or loss in its own account. Foreign exchange gains and losses sets out the treatment.

Two sales taxes, two accounts, two returns

GST paid on a business purchase is claimed back as an input tax credit, so it sits in a receivable account. PST paid on the same invoice usually does not come back, so it belongs in the cost of whatever was bought. Posting both taxes to one sales-tax account makes the GST return overclaim and the expenses look smaller than they are. We set up separate accounts for GST collected, GST paid and PST collected, and each return is prepared from its own balance. The BC PST guide covers which sales PST reaches.

Card deposits that never match the day

A card processor pays out net of its fees, often a day or two after the sale. Delivery and booking platforms pay later still, net of their commission. None of those deposits matches a day’s sales, and recording them as revenue understates both sales and fees. The ledger records the gross sale, the fee as an expense and the payout as a transfer, and each processor account is reconciled to nil every month. Why reconciliation matters goes further.

The owner’s own spending needs the same care. Personal items paid on the business card are coded to the owner, not to expenses, so the shareholder account is current when the year-end arrives.

Two municipalities on one peninsula

White Rock is its own city, and South Surrey, including Crescent Beach, Ocean Park and Morgan Creek, is part of the City of Surrey. A business with a shop uptown and a second location along the Highway 99 corridor deals with two city halls, two business licences and two property tax bills. We track each location as its own class in the ledger, so you can read the margin of one site without the other blurring it.

The same habit helps with staff who work at both sites, vehicles that serve both, and rent that is paid on two leases. Shared costs are allocated once, on a basis you agree, rather than argued about at year-end.

How the books differ across the peninsula’s industries

The chart of accounts is where each industry shows. A waterfront restaurant needs food, liquor and labour cost broken out so they can be read against sales every month. A shop on Johnston Road needs stock counted, not assumed. A trades company needs job costing and subcontractor payments separated for the T5018. A realtor needs commissions matched to brokerage statements. A home-based consultant needs clean invoicing and little else. Realtors and consultants rarely charge PST; the others almost always do.

Once there are employees, payroll in White Rock becomes the recurring obligation. Books months behind after a busy season are normal and fixable; catch-up work brings them current oldest month first.

Remote bookkeeping from Abbotsford

EverStone is a one-CPA firm based in Abbotsford, serving White Rock and South Surrey remotely. There is no White Rock office and no local staff. Bank and card feeds arrive electronically, receipts come in through a secure upload link, and the file sits in QuickBooks or Xero under your own login. The CPA who reconciles the ledger prepares the year-end from it.

Keeping the books and knowing what they mean are different jobs. It is worth deciding which level of finance support you need; fractional controller work starts from $1,500 a month.