Catch-Up Bookkeeping in Canada

The reality of being behind

Many Canadian small business owners come to us behind on bookkeeping — sometimes a few months, often a year or two, occasionally five years or more. The pattern is familiar: the business grew faster than the back-office did; the original bookkeeper quit or stopped responding; the cloud subscription got cancelled to save money; a personal life event derailed everything for a year. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: unfiled GST/HST returns piling up, no clean records for the corporate T2, no idea whether the business is actually profitable, and a CRA Demand to File starting to feel inevitable.

The good news: catch-up bookkeeping is one of the most rewarding engagements we do, because clients walk in stressed and walk out with a clean slate. The work is systematic, the timeline is predictable, and the cost is almost always less than the late penalties and lost deductions that would otherwise compound.

Who needs catch-up bookkeeping

• Businesses with one or more unfiled GST/HST returns
• Businesses with one or more unfiled T2 corporate income tax returns
• Sole proprietors with self-employment income they have not yet reported on T2125
• Owners facing CRA Demand to File or Non-Filer Program contact
• Businesses about to be sold or refinanced who need clean historical statements
• Businesses entering or about to enter a CRA audit who need defensible records
• Businesses preparing a Voluntary Disclosure Program submission

How we do it

1. Diagnostic intake. We assess how far behind, what records exist, what platform was used previously, and what filings are outstanding.
2. Document gathering. Bank statements, credit card statements, merchant processor reports, payroll records, prior tax returns, supplier statements, customer invoices. We can work from PDFs uploaded to the secure portal.
3. Platform setup. Usually QuickBooks Online or Xero. We create the file, set the opening balances, and configure the chart of accounts.
4. Historical reconstruction. Month by month, we enter transactions, code GST/HST, reconcile bank and credit card statements, and produce a draft P&L and balance sheet for each period.
5. Back GST/HST filings. We prepare and file each outstanding GST/HST return. CRA generally accepts back returns; interest still accrues, but the late-filing penalty is much lower than the penalty for failing to file at all.
6. Back T2 filings. We prepare a Compilation Engagement financial statement for each year and the corresponding T2 corporate return.
7. Owner-manager personal returns. If the owner’s personal T1s are also behind, we coordinate those.
8. Voluntary Disclosure if appropriate. For significant unreported income, we may recommend a Voluntary Disclosure Program submission to obtain penalty relief.
9. Transition to monthly going forward. Once caught up, we transition you to ongoing monthly bookkeeping so this never happens again.

What it costs

Catch-up bookkeeping is quoted as a fixed fee after the diagnostic. The cost is driven by the number of months behind, the volume of transactions, the number of bank and credit card accounts, and whether records are organized or scattered. As a rough comparison: ongoing monthly bookkeeping might cost a small business several hundred dollars per month. Catch-up for the same business covering a year often costs the equivalent of fifteen to twenty months of regular bookkeeping. It is meaningfully more expensive than just keeping up — which is the case for staying current going forward.

What Canadian businesses commonly miss about this service

Across the hundreds of Canadian businesses we work with, the same handful of issues come up repeatedly. Many small business owners delay engaging professional accounting until a crisis: a CRA review letter, an unfiled GST/HST return demand, a denied bank loan because financial statements aren't ready, or a Notice of Reassessment that arrived weeks ago. By the time we are first contacted, the cost to fix the problem is often several times what proper ongoing accounting would have cost from the start. Proactive engagement is dramatically cheaper than reactive cleanup.

The Canadian tax landscape also changes constantly. Recent changes that affect most Canadian taxpayers include the 2023 anti-flipping rule (residential real estate sold within 365 days is automatically business income, not capital gain); the Underused Housing Tax (UHT-2900 annual filing requirement for many corporations, partnerships, and trusts holding residential property even when no tax is owing — with $5,000 to $10,000 per-property failure-to-file penalties); the Quebec QST joint registration changes since 2021; the post-2018 Tax on Split Income (TOSI) rules that effectively eliminated casual income splitting through family dividends; the post-2021 $200,000 stock option vesting limit on the 50% deduction for options granted by non-CCPCs; the CSRS 4200 Compilation Engagement standard replacing the older Notice to Reader engagement; and ongoing CRA increased scrutiny on pre-construction assignments, short-term rental businesses, and cash businesses.

How BOMCAS Canada delivers this service

Every engagement begins with a written, fixed-fee engagement letter signed before any work is performed. The engagement letter describes exactly what is in scope, what deliverables you will receive, when those deliverables are due, what your monthly or project fee is, and what (if anything) is outside scope. This eliminates the hourly-billing surprise that most accounting clients fear. The only time we use hourly billing is for genuinely unpredictable items such as CRA audit response or complex one-off projects — and even then we agree to a maximum cap before starting.

Once the engagement letter is signed, you e-sign the CRA authorization (RC59 for businesses or AUT-01 for individuals), and we onboard you to the encrypted client portal with multi-factor authentication. All document exchange flows through the portal — no emailing of sensitive financial documents. Meetings happen by video conference or phone at times that work for you, including outside normal business hours when needed.

Our Canadian tax compliance philosophy

BOMCAS Canada is structured around four operating principles:

1. Tell the truth. If a tax position is aggressive, we say so. If a deduction will not survive a CRA review, we say so. If the engagement is going to cost more than originally quoted because the scope changed, we say so before doing the work.
2. Bill what we said we would bill. No surprise invoices. No scope-creep billing. If something legitimately changes scope, we discuss it and re-quote before doing the additional work.
3. Answer the phone. One-business-day response standard on client communications during normal business hours. No voicemail backlogs.
4. Specialize. Canadian tax and accounting is too complex to be a generalist. We do not do US-only tax, UK tax, or any other foreign jurisdiction in isolation. We are Canadian. Our cross-border work is always anchored by deep Canadian compliance.

What ongoing engagement with BOMCAS Canada looks like

For most clients, the ongoing relationship is structured around predictable monthly deliverables. For an incorporated small business client, that typically includes: monthly cloud bookkeeping with full bank and credit card reconciliation; quarterly or annual GST/HST returns prepared and filed; monthly payroll for owner-managers and any employees, with CRA source deduction remittances; year-end Compilation Engagement (CSRS 4200) financial statements; T2 corporate income tax return; owner-manager T1 personal tax return (and spouse where applicable); annual salary-vs-dividend optimization with written recommendation; unlimited email and phone support during business hours; one quarterly check-in call to review numbers and discuss the business; and CRA correspondence handling for routine review letters.

For a personal tax client, the ongoing engagement includes: annual T1 preparation; any required Quebec TP-1 (for Quebec residents); CRA pre-assessment and post-assessment review response when CRA requests additional documentation; Notice of Assessment reconciliation; and proactive tax planning conversations during the year about RRSP, TFSA, and FHSA contributions, major life events (marriage, kids, retirement, real estate), and any planned business or investment changes.

Frequently asked questions about engaging BOMCAS Canada

Why Canadian businesses choose specialized accounting over generalist accounting

The Canadian tax and accounting landscape has become significantly more complex over the past decade. The 2018 TOSI rules, the 2021 changes to stock option taxation, the 2022 mandatory reporting changes for trusts, the 2023 anti-flipping rule, the Underused Housing Tax, the changes to the small business deduction phase-out for passive investment income, the new CSRS 4200 Compilation Engagement standard, the continued expansion of digital sales tax rules, and the ongoing post-COVID CRA focus on cash businesses and unreported income have all required accountants to specialize more deeply. A generalist firm trying to cover personal tax, corporate tax, US tax, real estate, trusts, cross-border, and every industry vertical inevitably falls behind on the depth of expertise that any one client needs.

BOMCAS Canada is structured deliberately to maintain depth: we are Canadian-only by design; we work in industries where we have genuine specialized experience; we maintain ongoing professional education in Canadian tax law; we use Canadian-experienced staff at every level; and we coordinate with specialized partners (US-licensed cross-border, legal counsel for corporate restructuring, audit-engagement licensed practitioners) where required rather than trying to handle everything in-house.

Talk to a Canadian accountant

Call 780-667-5250 or submit the contact form. We respond within one business day and provide a fixed written quote before any work begins.

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