Shareholder Loan Tracker

The shareholder loan account records money moving between you and your corporation personally — cash you put in, cash you take out, expenses you paid on the company's behalf, company money spent on personal things. It is one account, and its balance can sit on either side.

It matters more than its bookkeeping profile suggests, because the direction of the balance has tax consequences. When the corporation owes you, you can generally draw that money back without further tax. When you owe the corporation, an amount left outstanding too long can be brought into your personal income — and the rules there are unforgiving of loose record-keeping.

Most shareholder loan problems are not planning failures. They are record-keeping failures: nobody wrote down which direction each transfer went, and at year-end the account is a single unexplained number. This sheet keeps a running balance and flags the direction, so you can see the position at any point rather than discovering it later.

The discipline this sheet is really enforcing is writing down the reason. Direction and amount are usually recoverable from a bank statement; purpose is not, and purpose is what determines the tax treatment. A line that reads "e-transfer $4,000" tells you nothing two years on, while "paid supplier invoice personally, to be reimbursed" answers the question before it is asked.