Reporting fell behind the business
Months or years of unreconciled transactions. The reports still generate, they just cannot carry weight for tax, financing, or any decision that costs money.
What we fix
What we are
called in
to correct.
Most owners identify the symptom before the cause. A report that does not match the bank balance. A question from a lender that takes a week to answer.
These are the conditions described on first calls. If more than one applies, this is the type of file the practice is built for. None are unusual, all compound quietly, and none correct themselves.
The profit and loss contradicts the bank
Profitable on paper and consistently short on cash, with no explanation. Typically duplicate entries, misclassified cost, revenue recognised twice, and accounts that have not tied in years.
CRA exposure is accumulating
Late filings, payroll discrepancies and transactions without supporting documentation. Individually minor, collectively the reason a narrow review becomes a wide one.
HST does not reconcile
Incorrect treatment, credits never claimed, duplicate tax entries, and filings that disagree with the ledger they were produced from. Frequently money owed to you rather than by you.
Entity balances do not agree
Holding companies, shareholder loans and intercompany transactions posted to the wrong entity and left unsupported. This is the core specialty.
The business outgrew its system
An arrangement that worked at five people does not work at forty, or across three companies. Reporting drifts and management loses visibility.
How it compounds
From one entry
to a review letter.
Every step in this sequence is individually reasonable, which is why it is rarely interrupted. The cost of correction roughly triples at each stage.
Month 1Origin
A transaction is coded to the wrong account
Nothing appears wrong. The report generates and the total is out by an amount too small to notice.
NegligibleCorrectable in minutes by whoever made the entry.
Month 6Pattern
The same mistake, repeated by habit
Two accounts have stopped reconciling. It is noted and set aside, because the month still has to close.
An afternoonStill a routine bookkeeping correction at this stage.
Year 1Filing
HST is filed on a figure nobody traced
The return is submitted from a report that has since changed. No working paper survives showing how the number was reached.
Real moneyTax on income you did not earn. Credits you were owed and did not claim.
Year 2Scrutiny
A lender asks for statements
Reports can be produced but not tied to source. Underwriting reprices the risk rather than declining the application.
A higher ratePaid monthly for the life of the facility.
Year 3Review
A review letter arrives
Support is requested that was never retained. Reconstruction means recovering records from banks and vendors for a period years past.
Five to ten timesThe cost of correcting it properly at the outset, now on an external deadline.
Each step in this sequence is individually reasonable, which is why it is rarely interrupted. The cost of correction roughly triples at every stage.
Common questions
Before you get in touch.
Our books are years behind. Is that beyond repair?
No. Multi year rebuilds are routine work, including files with partial records or a change of accounting system partway through. The longer the gap, the more the diagnostic matters, because scope must be established before anyone commits to a figure.
We have several companies. Does that complicate matters?
It is the work the practice is built for. Holding companies, operating companies, intercompany balances and shareholder loans are the core specialty. Most errors found in group structures originate from a transaction posted to whichever entity was convenient at the time and never reversed.
Will correcting old HST filings attract attention?
Amending a filing is an ordinary administrative act and is done constantly. What attracts scrutiny is a pattern of filings that do not reconcile to the underlying records, which is the existing position. The exposure and the correction path are explained in full before anything is submitted.
How does our situation compare to what you normally see?
Almost certainly less unusual than you expect. Owners frequently open a first call by apologising for the state of the file. It is rarely warranted, and it is not relevant to the work. The diagnostic exists to replace an impression with a measured position.
Next step
Recognise your business
in any of that?
Then you have an approximate sense of where you sit on that timeline. A free review establishes it precisely, which is the more useful figure.