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.
What Are the Next Steps After Incorporation
Once you have decided to establish a new corporation, there are certain best practices that you should implement to ensure that your corporation runs smoothly right from the beginning. If you are transitioning from a sole proprietorship to a corporation (unincorporated to incorporated entity), there are some additional steps that you need to take. By being proactive, you can turn your mind to your actual business and avoid unpleasant surprises (such as incomprehensible letters from the government and inconvenient deadlines). This article looks at the next steps you need to take after you have incorporated your business.
Financial Roadmap for Employees Transitioning to Self-Employment
Deciding to transition from being an employee to self-employed business owner/freelancer/independent contractor. can be a significant life event. It can certainly be exciting as you relish the thought of greater freedom, flexibility and the ability to exercise your creativity in ways that you cannot when you are an employee. However, there is also a great deal of uncertainty, both professionally and financially. And while you cannot control the outcome, understanding where the uncertainty might come from will help you be much better prepared.
Frequently Asked Questions About Salary and Dividends by Owners of Corporations
As an accountant and small business financial consultant, one of the most common areas of confusion and questions by small business corporation owners revolves around how to pay themselves and if one way is preferable to another. I have addressed some of them in my blog posts on the factors to consider when choosing salary or dividends and the types of ways to structure your remuneration . There are however specific questions that common up frequently:
Investment Strategies for Your Incorporated Small Business
One of the benefits of having an incorporated small business is that after paying yourself a salary or dividend any excess funds can be invested directly through the corporation. Since small businesses often cannot predict how their business will perform from year to year, the ability to retain funds in the corporation allows for a cushion to smooth out fluctuations in earnings which can then be paid out in lower performing years. By keeping the funds in the corporation, the business is able to defer tax since usually the small business tax rate is lower than the personal tax rate. Some points to consider: