Monthly bookkeeping services in BC
Updated
Yearly bookkeeping is a reconstruction; monthly bookkeeping is a record. It shows in the year-end cost and in what you knew during the year.
Rated 5.0 on Google from 21 reviews · Read them
Quick answer: Monthly bookkeeping means every account reconciled each month, not just the bank: transactions coded consistently, sales tax filed on schedule, payroll run and remitted, and a set of books that closes at year end rather than being rebuilt. From $325 a month, scaling with transaction volume.
Who does the work: a Chartered Professional Accountant prepares and reviews your file and answers your questions, from the first quote to the filed return. About EverStone CPA.
Fees are published: see fixed-fee bookkeeping on our pricing page.
On this page
- Monthly accounting, in one view
- What is included
- What it changes at year end
- When monthly is not enough
- What a month of bookkeeping actually contains
- Software, access, and switching from your current bookkeeper
- Why monthly, rather than once a year
- Who this is for, and who it is not
- The forms and the dates
- Who this is for in the Fraser Valley
- Other bookkeeping and accounting work
- Common questions about monthly bookkeeping
Monthly accounting, in one view
What a monthly engagement covers, and what is priced separately.
Who it suits
- Businesses with steady monthly transactions
- Owners doing the books at night, or whose bookkeeper left
- Companies that want the year-end prepared from clean records
What is included
- Bank, card and loan accounts reconciled monthly
- Consistent coding to a chart of accounts built for you
- GST/HST and PST filed on your period, where registered
- A closing package each month
- Year-end statements and T2 can be included in the fee
Outside the standard scope
- Bringing prior months current (quoted separately)
- Bookkeeping for additional companies, quoted on their own
- Your accounting software subscription
- Controller or CFO reporting
What you provide
- Read-only bank and card feeds, or monthly statements
- Receipts and bills, uploaded or photographed
- Payroll changes before each pay run
- Answers to a short list of questions each month
How it works
- Request a quote with your monthly volume
- Scope and a fixed monthly fee in writing
- Any cleanup scoped and quoted on its own
- Monthly close, then year-end from closed books
What affects the fee
- Transactions a month and number of accounts
- Payroll: employees and pay frequency
- Sales tax registrations and filing frequency
- Condition of the books on day one
Bookkeeping starts at $325 a month. Payroll and sales tax are priced in where they apply.
What is included
- Every account reconciled monthly — bank, credit cards, loans, and the balance sheet accounts nobody usually checks.
- Consistent coding against a chart of accounts built for your business rather than the software default.
- Sales tax prepared and filed on your reporting period.
- Payroll run and remitted, with the slips at year end.
- A closing package each month, so the year end starts from a closed file.
- One accountant who knows the file, rather than a queue.
What it changes at year end
A year end built on monthly books costs less and takes less of your time, because questions were answered when they arose. The adjusting entries stay small, so the year confirms what you thought rather than surprising you.
Where the books are behind, that is a separate piece of work first. Catch-up bookkeeping brings them current and is quoted on its own.
When monthly is not enough
Bookkeeping records what happened, not whether the result is right or what to do about it. When outsiders read your figures, or decisions rest on the bank balance, the next step is oversight: bookkeeper, controller or CFO sets out the difference.
What a month of bookkeeping actually contains
“Monthly bookkeeping” covers anything from typing in receipts to a closed set of accounts. This is what ours includes each month, and what each step is for.
| Each month | What it feeds |
|---|---|
| Bank and credit card accounts reconciled to the statements | Every other figure; an unreconciled account makes the rest guesswork |
| Income and expenses coded, receipts matched | The monthly profit and loss, and the T2 at year-end |
| GST/HST coded on every transaction | The GST/HST return (GST34), and input tax credits that survive a review |
| Payroll and source deductions matched to remittances | Clean T4 slips in February, and no PIER letter from the CRA |
| Subcontractor payments tracked | T5018 slips for construction businesses |
| Equipment and vehicle purchases flagged | Capital cost allowance (CCA) on the T2, instead of a lost deduction |
| Shareholder loan account kept current | A year-end without a surprise taxable benefit |
Each month you get a profit and loss and balance sheet, with anything unusual flagged. At year-end the closed books make the statements (usually a CSRS 4200 compilation) a matter of days.
What we need from you
- Read-only access to the bank and card feeds, or monthly statements
- Receipts and supplier invoices, photographed or forwarded as they arrive
- A short answer when we ask what a transaction was, usually a few a month
Monthly bookkeeping starts from $325 a month, and the fee is fixed in writing after we review your enquiry, based on volume and how many accounts there are — see pricing. GST/HST filing is included.
Software, access, and switching from your current bookkeeper
We work in QuickBooks Online and Xero, inside your own file, so the books stay yours if you ever leave. Bank and card feeds are connected read-only: we can see transactions, not move money.
Switching is simple. We need the last reconciled month, opening balances and the file login; the previous bookkeeper need not be involved. Any first-month clean-up over a few hours is quoted separately.
Records are kept for six years, as the CRA requires, and at year-end everything the T2 needs is already in the file.
Why monthly, rather than once a year
Books done once a year are rebuilt from memory: the faded receipt, the unexplained transfer, the invoice never sent. Done monthly, each question is asked while the answer is known. GST/HST returns, payroll remittances and instalments come from reconciled figures, and an October decision on hiring, equipment or a bonus rests on real numbers. When a lender, buyer or the CRA asks mid-year, the figures already exist and are checked.
Who this is for, and who it is not
A good fit: an incorporated business past the point where the owner can keep the books at the kitchen table, especially one with payroll, sales tax and more than a couple of hundred transactions a month.
Not a fit: a business with so few transactions that an annual clean-up costs less than twelve closes. We say so on the first call.
For a figure before we talk, the fee estimate tool turns the published fees into a monthly number for your business.
The forms and the dates
A monthly close means every account reconciled, sales tax coded for the GST34 and BC PST return, payroll posted from the PD7A, and statements sent on a fixed date. Year-end starts from a closed December, not a shoebox.
Who this is for in the Fraser Valley
The monthly files are Fraser Valley businesses: Abbotsford and Chilliwack trades with holdbacks, Langley and Surrey retail with PST, Mission and Maple Ridge service firms with payroll. Each closes on the same day monthly, with GST/PST and remittances drawn from the books.
Other bookkeeping and accounting work
The rest of what this covers, and the page each one is on.
Bookkeeping by city
The same monthly service, written up for the city your business is in.
- British Columbia: Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission, Langley, Surrey, Maple Ridge, Aldergrove, Fraser Valley, Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna
- Alberta: Calgary, Edmonton
- Manitoba: Winnipeg
- Ontario: Toronto, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, London, St. Catharines, Windsor, Oshawa, Barrie
Bookkeeping in Alberta
Alberta businesses file GST with no provincial sales tax and, for corporations, a separate AT1. City pages: Calgary, Edmonton, Airdrie, Red Deer, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray.
Common questions about monthly bookkeeping
Which software do you work in?+
Can we keep our own bookkeeper?+
How much does it cost?+
What if we only want the year end?+
Which bookkeeping software do you work in?+
What it costs. Monthly bookkeeping from $325 a month, including GST/PST filing and payroll; a contractor bundle with the year-end T2 and T5018s is usually $500–$700 a month all-in. Every published fee →
Starting fees
Every fee is fixed in writing before any work begins.
- Monthly bookkeeping, GST/PST filing includedfrom $325 a monthThis page
- Payroll, remittances, T4s and ROEsincluded in monthly bookkeeping
- Books, payroll and the year-end T2 together$500–$700 a month
- Corporate year-end and T2 returnfixed fee, quoted in writing
- Personal tax return (T1)from $125; self-employed or rental $275–$500
- Catch-up bookkeepingfrom $2,200 per year of records
- Controller or CFO supportcontroller from $1,650, CFO from $2,750 a month
- One-off advice call with a CPA$225 plus GST