THE ANSWER IN PLAIN LANGUAGE
YEAR-END · SMALL BUSINESS
A clean year-end begins before the tax return.
A year-end tax checklist for Canadian small businesses: reconcile the books, close payroll and sales tax, capture owner activity and prepare records before corporate tax work begins.
Short answerBefore business tax preparation starts, reconcile cash, receivables, payables, payroll, sales tax and owner transactions to the supporting records. Resolve missing documents and unusual balances while the year is still fresh instead of pushing every question into the tax return.
WHAT TO KEEP IN MIND
- ✓ Reconcile every bank and credit-card account
- ✓ Review receivables and payables
- ✓ Tie payroll and GST/HST to filed periods
- ✓ Capture owner/shareholder transactions
- ✓ Gather major asset, loan and legal documents
WHAT MATTERS
Organize the facts before choosing the tax answer.
These are the parts of the situation most likely to change the work.
Close the ledger
A tax return built on unreconciled books usually creates more questions, rework and risk than a return built from a clean close.
Resolve tax-account mismatches
Payroll and sales-tax balances should agree with the business’s filings and payments before corporate tax preparation is finalized.
Surface unusual events
New loans, asset purchases, ownership changes, related-party transactions or a new market can change the tax work and should be identified early.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Answers you can scan.
Do my books need to be perfect before tax preparation starts?+
They need to be supportable enough to prepare the return reliably. If cleanup is required, scope that work explicitly before final tax preparation.
Can Cavait do the cleanup and tax work together?+
Yes. Tax-ready bookkeeping and corporate tax can be coordinated in the same case so the handoff is visible and duplicate questions are reduced.
VERIFY WITH THE SOURCE
Tax rules, forms and deadlines change. These links go to the relevant government tax authority. This guide is general information, not personalized tax or legal advice.
TAKE THE NEXT TAX STEP
Want this handled instead of researched?
Start with your situation. Cavait turns it into the right checklist, scope and next step.