Questions, answered plainly.

Bloemet takes on new clients by request. You send a short request describing your business and what you need, and a partner personally reviews it. If there looks to be a fit, we arrange an intro call, then send a written proposal setting out the scope and fee.

Bloemet limits the number of clients it works with so that every client works directly with a partner. A capped roster is how a two-partner practice keeps senior attention on each engagement. It is a design choice, not a sales tactic.

A partner does the work. Bloemet has two partners, a CPA with four decades of accounting experience and a systems partner who builds business systems, and there are no junior hand-offs. You deal with the person doing your work.

Bloemet is based in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. We work with clients across Ontario and can work remotely with businesses elsewhere in Canada.

Bloemet does not publish prices. Every engagement is scoped first and quoted in writing, so the fee reflects the actual work your business needs. The written proposal states what is included, what is excluded, and what would change the fee.

Yes. Bloemet takes on catch-up work for books that are behind and clean-up work for books that are current but wrong. This is scoped and quoted separately from ongoing monthly work, so you know the one-time cost before it starts.

Not necessarily. Bloemet works with your existing software where it fits the job. If a change would genuinely help, we will explain why in plain terms, and we take no vendor commissions or referral fees on any recommendation.

A bookkeeper records and reconciles day-to-day transactions. A CPA (Chartered Professional Accountant) is a designated professional who prepares financial statements, handles tax and compliance, and applies judgment to complex matters. A controller oversees the whole accounting function, including reporting and internal controls, and is usually an in-house role in larger businesses.

No. The notice to reader standard (Section 9200) was replaced by CSRS 4200 Compilation Engagements for periods ending on or after December 14, 2021. Many owners and lenders still say “notice to reader”, but the current engagement is a compilation, which provides no assurance on the financial statements.

A compilation (CSRS 4200) is often enough for owner-managed businesses where no lender or investor requires assurance. A review engagement (CSRE 2400) provides limited assurance and, in Ontario, must be performed by a public accounting licence holder. Bloemet does not perform review engagements; if you need one, we will tell you plainly and help you prepare for it or coordinate with a licensed firm.

A T2 corporate income tax return is due six months after the end of the corporation's fiscal year. Any balance owing is generally due two months after year-end, or three months for eligible Canadian-controlled private corporations. Talk to us about your situation to confirm which applies to you.

You generally must register for GST/HST once your taxable supplies exceed $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters, which is the small supplier threshold. In Ontario, HST is 13% on most taxable supplies. Some businesses register voluntarily earlier so they can claim input tax credits.

Year-end means closing and reconciling the books for the fiscal year, posting adjusting entries, preparing financial statements and filing the corporate tax return. It goes more smoothly when the monthly books have been kept to a standard the accountant does not have to redo. Our CPA partner leads year-end work.

Yes. Our CPA partner handles CRA correspondence for clients, including requests for information and reviews of returns. Start by sending us the letter and its deadline so we can tell you what it requires.

Monthly bookkeeping cost depends on the work your books require: transaction volume, number of accounts, payroll, HST, inventory, clean-up work, software and reporting frequency. Any figure quoted without seeing your books is a guess. Compare quotes on scope and standard, not just the headline number.

Cash accounting records income and expenses when money moves; accrual accounting records them when they are earned or incurred. Accrual gives a truer monthly picture of profit and is generally required for corporate financial statements and tax filings. Cash basis can suit very simple businesses, but it distorts margins and receivables.

A month-end close package should include reconciled bank and credit card accounts, an income statement and balance sheet, aged receivables and payables, and notes on any adjustments or unusual items. It should be complete enough that your accountant can rely on it without redoing the work.

Yes, payroll can be part of a bookkeeping engagement. That includes running pay, remitting CPP, EI and income tax deductions to the CRA, and preparing T4 slips, which are due by the end of February. Whether payroll is included is set out in your written quote.

Catch-up bookkeeping brings books that are months behind up to date. Clean-up bookkeeping corrects books that are current but wrong, such as miscategorized transactions, unreconciled accounts or duplicate entries. Both are usually quoted as one-time projects, separate from monthly work.

Most of the work runs from bank feeds connected to your accounting software. Beyond that, a bookkeeper typically needs receipts and bills, sales invoices if they are issued outside the software, payroll changes, and notes on anything unusual such as loans or asset purchases. Sending these consistently reduces both errors and cost.

A fractional CFO provides senior financial leadership part-time, without the cost of a full-time hire. The work typically covers budgeting, cash flow forecasting, KPI reporting, pricing and margin analysis, and support on major decisions. Bloemet's business strategy work is fractional-CFO-style advisory led by our partners.

Five measures cover most owner-operated businesses: cash runway, gross margin by product or service line, accounts receivable days, revenue per labour hour, and owner's draw against profit. Each should be calculated the same way every month from closed, reconciled books and compared to your own trend.

Build it from the drivers your team controls, such as hours, jobs, prices and headcount, rather than from last year's totals plus a percentage. Involve the people responsible for each line, and compare actual results to budget every month. A budget nobody reviews monthly stops being used.

A budget sets planned revenue, costs and profit for a period, usually a year. A cash flow forecast projects when money will actually enter and leave the bank, including tax, payroll and loan payments. A profitable budget can still produce a cash shortfall, which is why most businesses need both.

A business has outgrown spreadsheets when staff re-key the same data into several places, nobody is sure which file is current, and month-end depends on one person. Headcount alone is not the trigger. Several of these signs together usually mean it is time for a proper system.

Start with off-the-shelf or configured platforms, which suit most owner-operated businesses and are maintained by the vendor. Custom builds make sense when your processes are genuinely unusual and central to how you win work. Custom gives an exact fit, but you become responsible for maintaining it.

It depends on the number of processes involved, the condition of your data and how much time your team can give the project. Data clean-up and process design usually take more time than software setup. Bloemet sets out a timeline in the written proposal after scoping.

A business systems audit is a structured review of the processes, software, data and people a business uses, carried out to find duplicated effort, lost information and error points. It ends with current-state process maps, a findings register and a prioritized plan of fixes. It is an operational review, not a financial audit.

Common signs include data typed into more than one system, approvals living in email, staff keeping private spreadsheets, and simple questions taking days to answer. If month-end or invoicing regularly runs late and nobody can say why, the process is usually the cause.

No. Bloemet takes no vendor commissions, referral fees or reseller margins. Platform recommendations are based only on fit for your business, and sometimes the recommendation is to make better use of software you already have.