The Client Portal
Reviewed by EverStone CPA · July 2026
Two people arrive on this page: a client trying to send something, and someone deciding whether a remote firm is a real one. Both answers are below, starting with the first.
Quick answer: If you are an existing client and need to send documents or sign something, use the link in your most recent email from us — it goes straight to your own file. If that link has expired or you cannot find it, email us or call 604-832-1743 and a new one is issued the same working day. Nothing important is ever locked behind a login you cannot reach: if the portal is in your way, we will simply take the documents another secure way.
What the portal is for
Three things, and deliberately not more. Sending documents to us securely, rather than as email attachments. Signing what needs signing, electronically, without printing anything. And keeping your finished returns and statements somewhere you can find them in two years when a lender asks.
It is not a place you have to visit regularly, and nothing about working with this firm depends on you enjoying software. Clients who would rather email a photograph of a receipt are welcome to do exactly that.
For the prospect reading this
You are probably here because a fully remote accounting firm raises a fair question: what does this actually look like once I am a client? Concretely, this:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Engagement letter, with the fixed fee on it, signed electronically. Portal access set up in your name |
| Day 2 | Authorisation forms prepared for you to sign so we can deal with the CRA on your behalf |
| Days 3–4 | You upload what you have, in whatever state it is in |
| Day 5 | A call: what we found, what is missing, what happens next and when |
| Ongoing | Email or phone, answered by the CPA doing your work rather than by a queue |
Authorising a representative is a CRA process rather than ours — the CRA’s own login services are where you will see the result of it, and it is worth having your own access set up whether or not you work with us. The business account walkthrough covers that.
Security, in specifics rather than adjectives
Documents move through an encrypted upload rather than as email attachments, which is the single largest practical difference between a firm that takes this seriously and one that does not. Signatures are captured electronically with an audit trail. Access is per client, and it is issued and revoked by us rather than shared.
What we will never do: ask for your CRA credentials. A representative is authorised through the CRA’s own process and never by logging in as you. If anyone asks you for those, including someone claiming to be us, it is not us.
How long your documents stay there
Finished returns and statements stay available in your file for as long as you are a client, and you can download everything at any time — they are your records, not ours, and they leave with you if you leave.
That matters more than it sounds, because the retention obligation is yours. The CRA requires business records to be kept for a defined period and to be available if asked; the record-keeping requirements set out what has to be kept and for how long. A portal that holds a tidy copy of the finished work makes that obligation easy to meet, but the obligation still sits with you, and any firm that implies otherwise is doing you no favours.
The practical version: when a lender, a buyer or the CRA asks for three years of statements, they are in one place and take a minute to produce rather than an afternoon of searching an inbox.
If something is not working
Email info@everstonecpa.com or call 604-832-1743. Access problems are fixed the same working day, and no deadline has ever been missed at this firm because a portal link expired — if it is in the way, we take the documents another way and sort the login out afterwards.
Also useful: the client hub, the year-end document checklist so you know what to gather, booking a call, fees, and every way to reach us.
Prepared and reviewed by a Chartered Professional Accountant at EverStone CPA, an Abbotsford CPA firm working with small businesses and incorporated owners across the Fraser Valley and Canada. About the firm → · Book a free consult →
Portal questions
I cannot find my portal link.+
Do I have to use the portal?+
Will you ask for my CRA login?+
Who actually sees my documents?+
Not a client yet?
This is what working with us looks like day to day. If it suits how you would like to work, the first conversation is free.
