Quick answer: Bookkeepers refer their clients’ T2s, year-ends and compilation engagements to us; we keep the bookkeeping exactly where it is — with you, and when a tax-only client of ours needs a bookkeeper, that referral flows the other way. No fee-splitting in either direction: CPABC rules and, frankly, cleaner incentives.
Where a file needs a CPA for the year-end but not for the month, that is the arrangement. An email enquiry sets out who does what.
On this page
The arrangement, stated plainly
- Your client stays your client. We take the corporate filings a bookkeeper cannot sign — T2s, year-end statements, compilation engagements, and we do not poach the books. That is in writing in the engagement letter.
- The referral flows both ways. Tax-only clients regularly need monthly bookkeeping we do not want to do in-house forever. Verified local bookkeepers are where they get sent.
- No money changes hands for referrals. No commissions, no splits, no “partnership fees”. You refer because the work comes back done well and your client thanks you for it.
What working with us looks like for your files
Keep your software and process. At year-end we take a backup or accountant access, return postable adjusting entries and answer in-year questions, so a client’s PIER report or GST review is not your unpaid problem. The handoff should take an afternoon, not a week.
Who this fits
Solo bookkeepers and small firms in the Fraser Valley and beyond — the work is fully remote — whose clients are incorporated owner-managers. If your book of clients is mostly sole proprietors, we are less useful to you; that honesty cuts both ways and is rather the point.
What a clean file looks like at year-end
The difference between a year-end that takes days and one that takes weeks is almost never the software. It is whether four things reconcile before the file is handed over.
| Item | What we look for |
|---|---|
| Bank and credit cards | Reconciled to the statement at year-end, with no stale uncleared items carried forward |
| GST/HST | The filed returns agree with the control account, and instalments are posted where they belong |
| Payroll | Remittances agree with the T4 summary, a mismatch here is what produces a PIER letter |
| Shareholder account | Personal items identified rather than buried, so the loan balance is a real number |
None of that requires the bookkeeper to make tax decisions. It requires the file to say what actually happened, which is a different job and the one that matters.
When to send it up rather than solve it
Some things are cheap to fix early and expensive to fix late. If any of these appear, they are worth a message rather than a workaround.
- A CRA letter. Most have a response window, and several are worse if answered imprecisely than if answered slowly. We keep plain explanations of the common ones.
- A payroll discrepancy. A PIER report means the slips and the remittances disagree; correcting the slips without understanding which side is wrong usually makes it worse.
- A growing shareholder loan. An owner drawing without a plan builds a balance that becomes income if it is still outstanding at the wrong moment.
- A structure question. “Should the spouse be on payroll” and “should this be a dividend” are tax decisions with rules attached, not bookkeeping preferences.
What we do not take over
We do not want your monthly work. You keep the bookkeeping, the client relationship and the recurring engagement; we do the year-end, the corporate return and the tax decisions.
Our licence covers compilation engagements. We do not audit or review the information we are given, and we say so on the statements we produce.
Common questions about for bookkeepers
Will you try to take over my client’s bookkeeping?+
Do you pay referral fees?+
What software do you work with?+
How do we start?+
Try one year-end together
One file, this year-end. If the handoff is not the easiest one you had all season, no hard feelings.
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