Contractor accountant in Victoria

T5018, if you pay anyone else to do the work

A business whose main activity is construction and that pays subcontractors has to report those payments on a T5018 information return each year. CRA cross-checks the slips against what the recipients report, which is precisely why it exists and precisely why errors get noticed. The failures we see are rarely deliberate: a subcontractor paid partly in materials, a supplier who also supplies labour and should have been split, a business number recorded from an invoice header that turned out to be wrong. Each is straightforward to get right at the time and awkward to reconstruct in February. The T5018 tracker is a free way to keep it current through the year.

Holdbacks sit on both sides of the ledger

British Columbia’s builders lien legislation requires a portion of most construction contracts to be held back for a statutory period, which means a contractor is usually both owed holdback by the parties above and holding holdback for the parties below. Treating the receivable side as ordinary accounts receivable overstates what is collectable now; ignoring the payable side understates what is owed. Both distortions land in the same place — a balance sheet that misrepresents working capital — and working capital is the figure a surety uses to set your bonding limit. If bonding capacity is what is restricting the size of the work you can bid, this is usually where to look first. Year-end statements in Victoria covers how a surety reads them.

WorkSafeBC, and the clearance letter nobody asked for

Coverage with WorkSafeBC is registered, reported and paid separately from CRA source deductions, at a premium rate set by the classification unit for the work you actually do. The exposure specific to contracting is that where you engage a subcontractor who is not properly covered, the liability can fall back on you. A clearance letter obtained before payment settles it; discovered after an incident, it does not. Marine repair, residential construction and roofing sit in different classification units at materially different rates, so a business doing two kinds of work should check it is reporting both correctly rather than all of it under one.

Marine work is its own thing

A refit, a repower or a haul-out is a job with parts, labour, subtrades and a schedule — structurally the same accounting problem as a build, with two differences. Equipment is heavier relative to revenue, so the treatment of capital purchases matters more to the return. And a marine business frequently carries parts inventory, which an ordinary trades ledger is not set up to value. Both feed the same year-end question of whether a piece of equipment should be bought, financed or leased, and the answer turns on cash and on what capital cost allowance does with it, rather than on the sticker price.

GST is due on the invoice, not on the payment

For most contractors GST becomes payable by reference to when the invoice is issued or payment becomes due, not when the money actually lands. Progress billing therefore creates a recurring cash problem: the GST on a progress claim is remitted on the normal schedule while the claim itself, and the holdback inside it, may be outstanding for months. Contractors who treat the GST account as a reserve rather than as money already spoken for are the ones who arrive at the filing date short. Keeping it visibly separate is a habit, not a system. GST and PST filing in Victoria covers the return itself.

When most of your work comes from one general

An incorporated tradesperson working almost exclusively for a single general contractor is in the fact pattern the personal services business rules were written for. If the corporation did not exist and you would reasonably be considered that company’s employee, the classification can apply — and it removes the small business deduction, removes the general rate reduction, adds a further 5% tax and disallows most ordinary business deductions. Supplying your own tools and vehicle, carrying your own insurance, working for more than one general with real revenue from each, and the ability to send a qualified substitute all matter. The PSB risk assessment walks the factors, and corporate tax in Victoria covers what classification costs.

Job costing, or a year you cannot explain

A contractor who knows the annual profit but not the margin on each job is guessing at which work to bid next. Costing by job — labour, materials, subtrades and equipment time against each contract — is what turns a year-end figure into a decision, and it is what shows that the steady repeat customer is subsidising the prestigious one. It requires the ledger to be set up for it from the start of a job rather than reconstructed afterwards. Construction and trades accounting covers the method, and bookkeeping in Victoria covers the monthly discipline behind it.

Remote, from one office in Abbotsford

EverStone is a sole practitioner CPA firm working from a single office at 32615 South Fraser Way in Abbotsford. There is no Victoria office and no Island staff. Invoices, subcontractor details and equipment purchases come in through a secure portal or straight from the bank feed, and the year end is reviewed on a call. Contractors are the least likely of anyone to want an afternoon spent travelling to an accountant’s office, which is the practical case for running the whole engagement online.

Where equipment and hiring decisions are coming, the forward numbers matter more than the historical ones — a forecast that gets updated is where that starts.

For fractional CFO in Victoria, where bonding capacity and bid pricing are the recurring themes, the scope and the fixed-fee approach are the same.

Contractors who also want payroll in Victoria and personal tax in Victoria can have both quoted together.