Explore Small Business Finance Topics
Discover our most popular topics for Canadian solopreneurs and small business owners. From income tax and GST/HST to QuickBooks tutorials and managing your business finances, these guides are designed to help you move from financial uncertainty to financial confidence.
Click on any topic and scroll down to see related articles.
📑Canadian Income Tax
Guidance on filing and planning your Canadian taxes, from T1 and T2 returns to instalments
📊Managing Business Finances
From cash flow to pricing and metrics — learn to manage your business finances with confidence.
🏢 Canadian Business Structure
Should you incorporate? Stay informed on sole proprietorships, corporations, and registrations.
💰 GST/HST & QST
Understand how to register, file, and maximize input tax credits while avoiding common mistakes.
🧾 Guides and Tutorials
Practical accounting processes like reconciliations, journal entries, and reporting.
📝 Deductions & Expenses
Learn which expenses are deductible and how to track them for maximum tax savings.
Quebec Taxes & Business
QST, Revenu Québec filings, Quebec payroll, and provincial rules every entrepreneur should know.
👤 Paying Yourself
Salary vs dividends, management fees, and how to pay yourself from your corporation or small business.
💻 QuickBooks Online & Tools
Tutorials, guides and time-saving tips for using QuickBooks Online effectively.
🏦 Money & Personal Finance
Personal finance strategies for entrepreneurs, from RRSPs to saving for taxes.
3 Invoicing Options for Small Businesses and Freelancers
If you are running a business of any size, it is essential that you have a system in place that allows you to get paid. A system can range in sophistication from a handwritten receipt to a software generated invoice which is part of an entity wide CRM system. To meet this need there are countless invoicing solutions available and many billions of dollars are spent annually on setting up systems to meet each business’ unique needs.
Almost all accounting software geared to small business owners and freelancers have built-in invoicing modules that integrate with your accounting. This is very useful when doing your books as you don’t have to worry about entering your invoicing manually and it allows you to track your accounts receivable and deposits into your bank account. There are also invoicing solutions that are not full-fledged accounting systems; however they usually integrate with the more popular software.
How to Update Wave Accounting for the 2012 QST Rate Increase
As of January 1st, 2012 the Quebec Sales Tax (QST Rate) which had gone up from 7.5% to 8.5% on January 1, 2011 will now increase to 9.5%. The effective sales tax in Quebec will go up from 13.925% to 14.975%. Since QST is calculated on the net amount + GST, the rate is not 14.5% but 14.975% . In other words the effective QST rate is 9.75%. Business owners will need to update their invoicing and accounting systems accordingly to ensure that the rate is properly reflected.
If you are using Wave Accounting, the update to the rates is fairly straightforward, with one little quirk. Since Wave, unlike Quickbooks, does not allow for the QST to be calculated on the GST, the effective rate has to entered manually. This is done as follows:
To update Quickbooks for the tax rate increase, please see “Updating Quickbooks for the 2011 QST Increase”. The procedure is essentially identical except for rates.