Year-end bookkeeping checklist for Canadian small businesses

Year end is when a year of small bookkeeping decisions gets added up. If the books have been kept monthly, it's a few hours of checking. If they haven't, it's the most expensive week of your accountant's year — billed to you.

This checklist is what to do before you hand anything over, in the order that saves the most rework, followed by the CRA deadlines that set the clock.

1. Get every transaction in

• Every bank account, every credit card, every loan and line of credit, through the last day of the fiscal year. Including the card you used twice.
• Cash and e-transfers that didn't go through the main account.
• Payment processor deposits (Square, Stripe, Shopify, Moneris) split into sales, fees and refunds, not booked as one net deposit.

2. Reconcile everything to a statement

For each account, the balance in your books on the last day of the year should match the statement, to the cent. Where it doesn't, find the difference now; it only gets harder. See how to reconcile a bank account.

Do the same for:

• Loans: the lender's year-end statement gives the balance. Make sure payments were split between principal and interest.
• GST/HST: the balance in GST/HST collected and receivable should agree with the returns you filed, plus anything not yet filed.
• Payroll: wages, deductions and remittances should agree with what you'll put on T4 slips.

3. Clear up the categories

• Uncategorized and "ask my accountant" items — every one, sorted or explained.
• Personal spending — in the shareholder loan (corporation) or owner's draw (sole proprietor), never in expenses. See business vs personal expenses.
• Meals and entertainment in their own account, with only half the GST/HST claimed. See the 50% rule.
• Equipment and vehicles bought during the year recorded as assets, not expenses, with the purchase documents.
• Receipts attached to anything large or unusual.

4. Receivables and payables

• Accounts receivable: list every unpaid invoice at year end. Chase the old ones; flag any you don't expect to collect so your accountant can consider writing them off.
• Accounts payable: list bills you owed at year end, including ones that arrived after year end for work done before it.
• Customer deposits and prepayments for work you haven't done yet.

If you keep books on a cash basis during the year, these lists are how your accountant converts to accrual for the return. See cash vs accrual accounting.

5. Count what needs counting

• Inventory: a physical count on or near the last day, valued at cost.
• Work in progress on unfinished jobs, if you're in construction or similar.

6. The owner's numbers

These sit outside the business accounts but your accountant needs them:

• Vehicle logbook: total kilometres, business kilometres, and the odometer readings at the start and end of the year. See claiming vehicle expenses.
• Home office: square footage of the workspace and the home, and the year's rent or mortgage interest, property tax, utilities and insurance. See business-use-of-home expenses.
• Shareholder loan balance (corporations): what you owe the company or it owes you. A balance you owe has a repayment clock — the shareholder loan section explains it.

7. What your accountant needs

Hand over one package, not a box:

• Trial balance, or a profit and loss and balance sheet, for the year
• Bank, card and loan statements for the last month of the year
• Reconciliation reports for each account
• Receivables and payables lists
• Inventory count, if any
• Fixed asset purchases and sales, with invoices
• GST/HST returns filed for the year
• Payroll summary
• T5018 payments to subcontractors, if construction is your main business
• Logbook and home-office figures
• Anything unusual: a new loan, a vehicle sold, a lawsuit, a big one-time sale

If your accountant prepares a corporate return, the financial statements go to the CRA as GIFI codes on Schedules 100 and 125 (CRA, RC4088). Books whose accounts already map to GIFI save them a step. See chart of accounts.

The deadlines

Corporations (T2)

• File the T2 return within six months of the end of the tax year. If the year ends on the last day of a month, it's due by the last day of the sixth month after — a March 31 year end is due September 30 (CRA, when to file your corporation income tax return).
• Pay the balance earlier than you file. Generally two months after year end; three months for a Canadian-controlled private corporation that claimed the small business deduction and meets the other conditions (CRA, balance-due day).

That gap catches people. For a December 31 year end, the return isn't due until June 30, but the tax is due at the end of February or March.

Sole proprietors (T1 with T2125)

• File by June 15 (for the 2025 tax year, June 15, 2026).
• Pay any balance by April 30 (April 30, 2026) (CRA, 2026 tax deadlines for businesses and self-employed).

Same trap: a balance still unpaid after April 30 is late, even though the return itself isn't late until June 15.

GST/HST

• Monthly and quarterly filers: file and pay one month after the end of each reporting period.
• Annual filers: three months after the fiscal year end — except self-employed individuals with a December 31 year end, who pay by April 30 and file by June 15 (same CRA page).

Slips

• T4 and T4A: by the last day of February (same CRA page).
• T5018 (construction subcontractor payments): six months after the end of the reporting period you've chosen, calendar or fiscal (CRA, when to file information returns).

After year end

• Lock the year in your bookkeeping so nothing gets changed by accident once the accountant has the numbers.
• Book your accountant's adjusting entries when you get them, so next year starts from the same numbers they filed.
• Keep the records. See how long to keep business records.

Make year end a non-event

The real year-end checklist is the monthly one: upload statements, sort transactions, reconcile, file GST/HST. Spark Books is built around that rhythm. You upload bank and card statements (CSV, OFX or PDF from the major Canadian banks), it sorts them into a Canadian chart of accounts with the GST/HST split, matches your receipts, and keeps personal spending out of expenses. At year end it produces a package mapped to GIFI for a corporation or the T2125 for a sole proprietor — what your accountant asks for, already in the form they use.

The short version

• Get every transaction in; reconcile every account to a statement.
• Clear uncategorized items; move personal spending out of expenses.
• List receivables, payables and inventory.
• Gather logbook, home-office and shareholder loan figures.
• Corporations: pay in two or three months, file in six. Sole proprietors: pay by April 30, file by June 15.

Spark Books is free, with an optional bookkeeper plan at $350 a month if you'd rather hand the monthly work to a person. No card needed to start.