Salary Vs. Dividends

The ability to set your own salary is a benefit that draws many Canadians to starting their own business. But it is also a benefit that can lead to confusion and frustration as you try to decide exactly how you can extract funds.

When it comes to paying yourself, there are two options:

Salary – paid out of the corporation’s net income, this is a deductible employment return

Dividend – paid out of the corporation’s after-tax retained earnings, this is an investment return

You can also take a combination of both.

What you choose to take depends entirely on what is important to you. Both salary and dividends have pros and cons, and the tax savings differ depending on what you are looking to get.

3 Signs It’s Time to Hire A New Accountant

If you are like most business owners, you likely pay someone else to prepare your taxes. Especially as your company becomes more developed with more investments and developments, professional tax advice is mandatory to ensure the proper recording and reporting of your finances. And as your accounts payable and accounts receivable become more complex and with more variables, you’ll likely start to realize that you need a specialized accountant as opposed to your everyday personal accountant. There are many warning sings that you need a new accountant; it typically isn’t something that will present itself to you one day without any red flags along the way.

Here are three signs that it’s time to think about hiring a new accountant:

Save Yourself A Headache – Start Preparing For Next Years Taxes Now

It’s tax-time, and you find yourself running around, frantically sorting through piles of paperwork and receipts and donation slips, reviewing that dreaded excel spreadsheet that somehow didn’t balance – again. You wonder why every year it’s the same situation – panic, rush, stress. Will it ever get easier? Is there just no cure to this tax-season fever?

If that sounds like you at tax time, you need to read this article.

Why Your Business Needs Accurate Bookkeeping

If you own any type of business, big or small, chances are you’ve already come to realize that organization is likely the most important element to success.

Especially in the start-up phase of a business’s journey, you have probably encountered periods of disorganization, and this is totally normal. It can take a while to figure out a process that is efficient and cost-effective, without sacrificing the quality of the service or product you offer.

Disorganization is sometimes unavoidable in those early phases of starting a business, but there is one factor that you mustn’t let slip – accurate bookkeeping.

How Hiring an Accountant Can Help Your Small Business 

For many small business owners, knowing how to cut business costs by taking on extra work isn’t always an easy task to balance. The more you can do on your own, the less you have to spend hiring someone else to do it, but how do you know which tasks you can handle yourself and which ones would be better off in the hand of a professional? While accounting is one of the areas that many business owners take on by themselves, unless you have experience managing the books of a business, do-it-yourself accounting can end up hurting your business. Before deciding that the expense of hiring an accountant for your business isn’t worth it, consider the assistance they can provide.

Not Sure How To Choose An Accountant?

Hiring a tax accountant for your small business is a decision that can save you time and money. An experienced business accountant will make managing important financial aspects of your business easier. An experienced business accountant will prepare your taxes and statements for returns, and can provide advice and consultation based on the different requirements of each business. But not all accountants are the same, so how do you choose the right one for you and your business? Here are some tips and recommended questions to ask when selecting an accountant: