Small-business bookkeeping records transactions and organizes the documents behind them so owners and advisers can understand the accounts. A useful process includes reviewing balances and following up on missing information. Versa LLP in Brampton offers bookkeeping and cloud accounting services. This Ontario guide helps owners discuss monthly work, catch-up records and moving to a new bookkeeping system.
What does a bookkeeping service cover?
A bookkeeping engagement can cover recording activity, reconciling accounts and producing agreed reports. Establish which bank accounts, cards, sales channels and payment processors are included. Ask how invoices, receipts and other evidence will be connected with each transaction.
The CRA describes records as the accounting information and the documents that support it. Read its record-keeping overview. A bank entry can identify a payment, while an invoice or receipt helps explain what it was for. Ask your provider what information it needs to classify unfamiliar transactions and how those questions will reach you.
What should a monthly bookkeeping checklist include?
Build the checklist around how money moves through your business:
- Supply the period’s bank and card statements and source documents.
- Check customer invoices, payments and outstanding balances.
- Review supplier bills, payments and amounts still owed.
- Explain owner transfers, financing and unusual transactions.
- Review reconciliations and unresolved differences.
- Agree which reports will help you monitor the business.
Assign a person and a completion date to each item. If a transaction is unresolved, keep it on a follow-up list rather than guessing its purpose. A repeatable month-end process gives the accountant a clearer starting point for year-end questions.
How should you prepare for catch-up bookkeeping or a software change?
For catch-up work, identify the last completed period, the accounts involved and the records available. List overdue returns and any correspondence with a deadline. Ask the provider to separate cleanup work from the ongoing monthly engagement and explain how opening balances will be checked.
For a software change, agree on the cutover date, historical information to retain and how balances will be reconciled. Keep an accessible copy of the source records. The CRA’s electronic record-keeping guidance addresses readable electronic records and access; changing software should be planned with those responsibilities in mind.
How long should business records be kept?
The CRA generally requires records to be retained for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, with exceptions and longer requirements for certain records or circumstances. Use the CRA’s retention guidance to discuss the requirements that apply to your business, including a late return or unresolved dispute.
Agree who holds the records, how you can retrieve them and what happens when the engagement ends. Review access for staff and advisers when responsibilities change. For a cloud system, discuss exports and backups as well as the working ledger, so you can continue to explain transactions later.
Are bookkeeping, tax returns and payroll included together?
Confirm each deliverable in writing. Recording the books, preparing a corporate tax return and administering payroll involve connected information, but the scope of one service does not establish what another engagement includes. Ask who prepares and files returns, who approves them and who makes payments.
Use PCBO’s corporate tax preparation guide for year-end questions, the payroll services guide for employer administration, and the GST/HST guide for an introduction to sales-tax obligations.
Versa LLP: bookkeeping and cloud accounting in Brampton
Versa LLP’s published bookkeeping services include monthly work in QuickBooks Online or Xero, reconciliations, HST-return support and system setup or cleanup within an agreed engagement. Discuss your software, last reconciled period and approximate transaction volume with the firm.
Versa is based at 2 County Court Blvd, Brampton, ON L6W 3W8. Call 905-234-6925 or visit the Versa LLP PCBO profile for its public contacts. Confirm the records needed, secure handover process, responsibilities and fees before work starts.
Sources & further reading
Sources checked on October 19, 2026.
