Financial statements for Maple Ridge trades corporations

Filings include T4 slips, Schedule 1 and Schedule 50.

The work you did in December and invoiced in January

Most trades businesses close the year with jobs part-done: labour paid, materials bought, nothing invoiced. Record revenue only when billed and costs land in one year, revenue in the next, and both years are wrong.

The fix is to accrue work performed but not invoiced, using a list of open jobs at year end with their labour and materials, made at the time. A list rebuilt in April convinces nobody.

Customer deposits are a liability, not a good month

A deposit for a kitchen starting in March is not revenue but a liability until the work is done. Booking deposits as income overstates profit, pulls tax into the wrong year and misleads the owner.

It also creates a cash trap. Deposits feel like available money and get spent on the current job, while the promised work still has to be paid for later. Classifying them correctly makes that position visible.

What the bank is looking at when the line renews

Small trades corporations rarely face bonding or covenant tests. A lender looks once a year when renewing the operating line, asking whether the business made money, can service its debt, and has real, collectible receivables behind the line.

Receivable aging carries weight. A pool with a third over ninety days reads differently from one collected within thirty, and the ninety-day portion is often discounted or excluded from the line. A clean aging beats a flattering total.

Vehicles, tools and the shareholder loan account

Owner-managed trades corporations often build up two issues: vehicles and tools never settled between owner and company, and a shareholder loan account absorbing whatever did not fit elsewhere.

A debit shareholder loan at year end is money the owner owes the company, with a real tax cost unless repaid within the required window. Fix it at year end, not two years later. See the shareholder loan guide.

What a compilation does and does not give you

A compilation engagement under CSRS 4200 is standard for an owner-managed trades corporation. The accountant presents the information the business provides without verifying it or giving any opinion or conclusion, and the statements say so.

It is not an audit, which adds a tested opinion, or a review, which adds limited assurance through enquiry and analysis. Lenders on a modest operating line almost always expect a compilation, but ask: a lender wanting more will come back after year end.

Reading your own statements as a management tool

The most underused part of year end is discussing what it says. Gross margin shows whether work was priced well, overhead share shows whether costs outgrew the business, and the profit-to-bank gap shows where money went: usually receivables, unbilled work or equipment.

Statements filed without being read are an expensive compliance exercise. The walkthrough with the person who prepared them is part of the engagement.

How the engagement works online

EverStone is one CPA working online, with no Maple Ridge office. Documents arrive by secure upload link, questions are handled by video call, and signatures are electronic. For an owner on tools most days, that saves the day lost to sitting in someone’s boardroom.

The work suits incorporated framing, finishing, mechanical and electrical trades, landscaping and site businesses, small manufacturers and the service companies around them. Related pages: the Maple Ridge small-business CPA page and Maple Ridge contractor accounting.

If the year showed a busy year that produced no money, see fractional CFO support for Maple Ridge trades.

Remote financial statement work

The work is done virtually. There is no Maple Ridge office and no local team. You deal with the CPA directly, and records reviewed through the year keep the year end short.

The year end this all feeds into is corporate tax in Maple Ridge.

None of this works on records that are behind, which is what our Maple Ridge bookkeeping page keeps current.

Where a lender or an agreement calls for assurance rather than a compilation, the next question is what readiness for that engagement involves.