Close Your Year Right.
Arrive at Tax Time Ready.

The T2 corporate income tax return must be filed within six months of your corporation's fiscal year-end. For example, if your fiscal year ends December 31, your T2 is due June 30. If your year-end is September 30, your T2 is due March 31. The six-month rule applies regardless of when your fiscal year falls — it is not a fixed calendar date like the personal T1.

However, any balance of corporate tax owing is due earlier: within two months of the fiscal year-end for most corporations. Canadian-Controlled Private Corporations (CCPCs) that claimed the small business deduction in the current or prior year have a three-month payment window instead. This is an important distinction — you can file the T2 return itself later without a late-filing penalty as long as no balance is owing, but paying the tax balance late triggers immediate daily interest. We track both your payment deadline and your filing deadline separately and ensure your working papers are delivered to your CPA well in advance of both dates.

Year-end bookkeeping and tax filing are two separate steps that happen in sequence. Year-end bookkeeping means closing your financial records for the fiscal year: making all adjusting entries, recording depreciation on assets, reconciling every account, handling shareholder transactions or loans, and producing final financial statements — the income statement and balance sheet — that serve as the authoritative record of the year.

Tax filing (the T2 for corporations) uses those statements to calculate your taxable income and the tax owing, applying tax-specific adjustments such as adding back non-deductible expenses or calculating Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) on eligible assets. We handle the bookkeeping and working papers; your CPA handles the T2 preparation and any advanced tax strategy. If you don't have a CPA, we can refer you to one in our network. Because our working papers are clean, organized, and complete, your accountant typically spends less billable time reconstructing your year — which reduces their fee and speeds up the whole process.

For an incorporated business, yes — in most cases you need both. Bookkeepers and accountants serve distinct roles that complement each other. We maintain your financial records throughout the year and produce clean, complete working papers at year-end that your accountant needs to prepare the T2. A CPA accountant provides tax strategy, prepares and signs off on the T2, and handles any complex tax positions or elections.

Working with both is often more cost-effective than it sounds. Because we deliver organized, reconciled working papers rather than a box of unsorted receipts, your CPA goes straight to the tax return rather than spending hours reconstructing your finances. You get specialists in each function, your accountant's bill goes down, and the overall quality of both the books and the tax return improves. If you don't currently have a CPA, we work with several experienced ones we can connect you with — so you don't have to find one on your own at the busiest time of year.

This is one of the most common situations we encounter at year-end, and it is completely fixable. Whether you tracked nothing or you started the year well and fell behind by summer, we assess the full scope during an initial consultation — what records exist, what is missing, and what can be reconstructed from bank statements, credit card history, and any other available sources.

After the assessment, we give you a clear plan: what we need from you, what we can reconstruct on our own, the expected timeline, and the cost. We prioritize getting your books to a state where your CPA can proceed with the T2 before your filing deadline, and we communicate directly with your accountant if coordination is needed. Catch-up bookkeeping typically takes one to four weeks depending on the volume and complexity of your transactions. After year-end, we can bring you onto regular monthly service so this never happens again.