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Last reviewed: 27 October 2026, against the CRA’s current GIFI guidance (Guide RC4088) and T2 filing requirements. GIFI codes and filing rules change, so confirm the current CRA guidance before relying on any specific code. Reviewing a corporate client’s financial statement information bef…

The payroll register looks clean. Totals balance. The software says year-end is ready to process. Then you pull the employee master file and find an address from 2019, a SIN that fails validation, an automobile benefit the client mentioned in September but never confirmed, and three contractor payment…

A client receives their monthly P&L. Revenue is up 12% over the same quarter last year. Expenses look reasonable. Nothing jumps off the page. The report gets emailed. The client files it away. Nobody asks why gross margin has fallen for three consecutive months. Nobody notices that two customers n…

A bookkeeper finishes categorizing three months of transactions for a restaurant client. She reconciles the bank account, checks the GST/HST coding, and moves the file to the reviewer’s queue. Two days later, the reviewer opens it and finds a $4,200 equipment purchase with no supporting invoice….

You’re staring at a practice management screen showing forty-seven files marked “In Progress.” The T2 deadline is three weeks out. Everything looks fine, right up until you open the first file and realize the bank statements never arrived, the PBC list went unanswered, and nobody on …

Last month I pulled up a client file and found $14,200 sitting in a suspense account. The oldest item was eleven months old. Nobody could tell me what it was. The bookkeeper who had parked it there had left the firm. The client had no idea. And the year-end was three weeks away. That moment, [……

The payroll ran. Employees got paid. CPP, EI, and income tax were withheld correctly. The CRA remittance went out on time. And the books were still wrong. I’ve seen this play out dozens of times across client files. The payroll provider did its job, the calculations were accurate, and the net pa…

A bookkeeping file can be reconciled, categorized, and technically complete without being ready for client delivery. The bank reconciliation ties out. Transactions have categories. The trial balance isn’t screaming. And the file still isn’t ready. Maybe an old outstanding item has been sit…

Two bookkeeping clients each pay the firm $1,500 a month. On the revenue report, they look identical. But one takes roughly eight hours of team time per month. The other routinely consumes 18 hours, generates follow-up questions, requires corrections, and needs a partner on the phone at least twice a …

It’s 4:47 PM on Wednesday. Payroll processing starts tomorrow morning for twelve clients. Nine have submitted their information. One sent a spreadsheet with last week’s hours but nothing about the new warehouse hire who started Monday. Another replied to the reminder email with “will…

A client sends over three employee address changes at 4:47 on a Friday. Then a termination notice Monday morning, with an ROE needed “as soon as possible.” By Wednesday they want a custom report breaking out overtime by department, something that was never discussed when the engagement sta…

The bank reconciliation is done. The difference is zero. You saved the report, closed the period, and moved on to the next client file. Then someone pulls up the balance sheet and the GST/HST receivable looks inflated. Or expenses are running 40% higher than last quarter with no obvious reason. Or A/R…