As a small business owner, it’s important to know how to audit your own financial records. We don't mean "audit" in the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) sense. We mean taking a good look at your numbers. That's really all CRA is doing when they audit your tax information anyway. Knowing how to properly audit and assess your business finances is essential for successful budgeting and forecasting. In this blog, we’ll go over some of the basics of auditing your business financials and discuss why it’s so important. Let’s dive in!  Why Audit Your Business Financial Records?  Auditing your business financial records [...]

You’re looking at your bank balance in Xero, and for some reason it doesn’t match your bank statement. How is this possible? Once a bank feed is set up, Xero is supposed to import all your transactions, isn’t it?  Xero is an amazing accounting app, but sometimes random things happen, and the app doesn’t import all the line items from your bank statement like it should. At Virtual Heights Accounting, we recommend you compare your Xero bank balance to your bank statement at least monthly so you can easily stay on top of these types of occurrences. What are bank feeds? [...]

If you own a Canadian company providing services to US Companies, you may have been asked to fill out a W-8 BEN-E form. What is the W-8 BEN-E form and why do you need to complete it? In this article, we'll answer these questions and show you how an active business and Canadian corporation in Canada offering consulting services to a US company would complete this form. This is only relevant for non-financial entities such as management consultants. What is the W-8 BEN-E Form? The W-8 BEN-E form is provided by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a federal tax agency similar [...]

So you’ve decided you’re going to use Xero to record all of your business transactions. Adding conversion balances is an important part of getting started with Xero. However, if you’ve just started your business and you have not done any bookkeeping yet, you don’t need to worry about conversion balances.  What are conversion balances? These are the balances on your trial balance at the date you convert from another accounting app or software program to Xero. It’s important that these are accurate so your books and records can continue on from where you left off. Entering Conversion Balances  In order to [...]

If you're using the Xero accounting app to manage your finances, then you'll need to know how to reconcile your bank account. This process ensures that the transactions in your bank account are accurately reflected in Xero. In this blog post and accompanying YouTube video, we will walk you through the steps of reconciling your bank account in Xero. Confirm Bank Statement Transactions From within the bank account you want to reconcile, go to the bank statements tab. Check to make sure the unreconciled transactions that have been imported are from your current statement. While in this screen, you can also [...]

Starting and running a business can be challenging financially if you don’t have the savings you need or don't know where to look for financial help. Thankfully, there are a number of initiatives specifically for Canadian businesses to help you get off the ground or keep your business going during difficult times. 4 Places You Can Get Financial Help for Your Business It can be hard to know where to look for financing for your business thanks to numerous online scams. Here are four legitimate sites you can check to see if your business qualifies for any of their funding or [...]