Julie Middleton

Best client conversations 🥰

It’s November! The streets are cluttered with autumn leaves 🍁 and the air is much cooler 🥶

I am borrowing this next statement from Sharon at because when I read it, it exactly summed up how am I am feeling today: I am heading into November with calm and intention and gratitude with the plan to connect and be present and to listen and laugh and love a whole lot. 🥰

The holiday shirt drive is here!

Posted • We are super thrilled to launch our 4th annual ❄️ʜᴏʟɪᴅᴀʏ ꜱʜɪʀᴛ ᴅʀɪᴠᴇ ❄️today!

We are collecting new shirts sizes 3-16 to be modified and donated to kids across Canada with Cancer. We have a goal of collecting 5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ shirts and raising $𝟮𝟬𝟬𝟬 in cash (cash donations are eligible for a charitable donation receipt!) by December 22.

All the info is on our website (link in profile)

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱?
🪡 Dropoff your shirt(s) donation at one of our many dropoff locations across Ontario
🪡 Order online and have shirts mailed directly to Zippaport HQ
🪡 Organize a Holiday Shirt Drive with your work, sports team or club (link to helpful tools in our profile)
🪡 Donate 💰on our website (www.zippaport.ca/donate)

Questions? DM us or email [email protected]

ICYMI: the Ontario minimum wage rate increased to $16.55/hr on October 1st. Make sure you update your payroll rates as required ✅

I put this off for almost as long as possible…the last day to complete before I lost a bunch of benefits is Friday 🗓️

There was no reason to put it off, other than having a million other things to do … but now it’s done and I’ve retained my ProAdvisor status 🥳

I don’t do a ton with my status, tbh, but it’s a status I like to have. Any-hoo, off to celebrate 🥂

The topic of progress billing has come up with my clients several times recently - both when sending invoices and receiving bills from suppliers so I thought it's a good topic for a post.

If you have a big project with multiple steps, you are likely needing to break the billing up into segments. There are a few ways you can do this (and my thoughts on each):

ʙɪʟʟ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴀᴛ ᴏɴᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀꜱᴋ ꜰᴏʀ ᴘᴀʏᴍᴇɴᴛꜱ ᴀʟᴏɴɢ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʏ - as a bookkeeper this is my least favourite way to handle progress payments. Once you've sent an invoice and a payment is made, it's super complicated if adjustments need to be made - HST may have been filed, a year end may have happened - and most likely you'll need to issue a separate invoice (or credit) for the discrepancy. Most businesses don't understand the implication of changing an invoice after a period has ended, and it causes everyone's bookkeeping to be messy. The other issue with this method is that your revenue/expenses won't line up (unless you create adjusting entries) and so your P&L will be wonky.

ʙɪʟʟ ɪɴ ɪɴᴄʀᴇᴍᴇɴᴛꜱ - this is my favourite way to tackle big projects. Send an invoice JUST for what you want to be paid for (or ask your supplier to just bill the current portion of the project). You can take advantage of estimates and progress billing in QB to keep track of what you've invoiced, and then if adjustments need to be made you adjust the progress invoice and not what's already been sent out. You can add notes and memos to invoices to keep track of what's been billed, or create a PO in QB to keep track of what's been agreed to, to avoid duplicate bills.

Hope that helps!

Kids are back at school 🥳 sports and after school activities are starting back up again and September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It’s a busy month, but if you have a year end coming up, let’s start talking about getting ready.

Are you caught up with your bookkeeping? Don’t wait until January to pass off your receipts to your bookkeeper - start now! It will make tax season less painful for everyone 😉

Go through your emails and find the receipts. Log into your online subscriptions and download what’s there. Look in your wallet and purse and car console for the hard copy receipts. And let’s get organized now!

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. This is something near and dear to my heart. Read more about why at and

Up and at it! Last week was a week of rest and relaxation with the family, this week is catch-up 😜

I’ve organized most of my emails and planned my week and am feeling pretty good about staying on track. Email responses will be slow this week, but it’ll all get done ✅

Ah the August long weekend. A stat holiday, just like the others…right? Wrong.

The Civic Holiday is an optional holiday and provincially regulated employers are not required to give it off, although many do.

The tradition of the Civic Holiday dates back to Toronto in 1869. It was formally created in 1875 when the first Monday in August became the August Civic Holiday in Toronto.

As a non-statutory holiday in Ontario, the Civic Holiday is not listed as a public holiday in the province's Employment Standards Act. Federal government offices will be closed, but provincially regulated employers are not required to treat this as a holiday.

Also as a point of note: Ontario is the only province in Canada that recognizes Boxing Day, December 26th, as a statutory holiday which can cause some confusion for businesses that operate across provinces.

Too much 🤯 for today? Enjoy the day and we’ll chat when I’m back from vacay 🏝️ 🛶 ☀️

As a Bookkeeper, I think I'm supposed to love organizing receipts. But here's my dirty little secret: I don't. It's the task that I avoid - that is always at the bottom of my to-do list.

I've gotten better at doing it, because it's actually important and because when a client asks for the receipt for that tool that they bought on a specific day, I need to be able to find it. Here are my tips on organizing hard copy receipts:

1️⃣ Don't put it off - do it as soon as you get the receipt. Organizing 2-3 receipts is so much easier than 30 receipts.

2️⃣ Keep it simple. Don't make too many categories. Typically, I create just a few categories (and organize by year):
🚗 Auto (parking/gas/R&M)
🍎 Meals/Entertainment
💻 Office/General
🏠 Home Office
If you really don't have many hard copies, you can even just get away with organizing by year.

3️⃣ Use an expandable folder (like the one in the image) - they are usually on sale at this time of the year! If you have too many receipts for that, I like to use a 9x12 envelope and store them in a clear bin.

That's it! I'm sure you're asking: but do I actually need to keep my hard copy receipts? CRA says to keep your original copies of receipts. In reality, they generally do everything electronically now, so you'd end up scanning and submitting them....but to be safe, I always recommend keeping the hard copies. Don't print something if it comes in hard copy, but if you receive a paper receipt, keep it.

🍍 It’s summer and the last thing we want to be doing is admin work, right? Right. But here’s my tip: don’t put it off. September 🍁 will be here in the blink of and eye (😳), and before you know it it’ll be year end and you’ll still be catching up from putting things off in the summer.

Keep taking photos of your receipts, organize your soft copies when they come into your inbox - 5 mins a day will keep you efficient and organized. I promise you’ll thank me for this 😜

Whew there is a lot of reporting that happens in July! Here’s a checklist to keep you up to date:
✅ HST
✅ WSIB
✅ Payroll taxes
✅ City of Toronto MAT

And we’re halfway through the calendar year so don’t forget to check in on your financials - are your books up to date?

What else did I miss? Keeping up with your bookkeeping makes this kind of reporting much easier. 😉

It’s the first day of summer camp and the first day of “summer hours” for many small business owners (ie ME).

I’m embracing the challenge to spend quality time with my 7 year old who is in a half day camp this week while managing the same workload as every other time of the year, including HST deadlines and other quarterly filing requirements. It’s not easy, but doable. Right?

Oh and then the Wi-Fi in my office shed stopped working after a brief power outage yesterday so I’m being flexible while trying to sort out that nonsense 💪🏻

So if emails are returned late or it seems like I’m scrambling to get everything done….you’ll understand why.

The word audit can be super scary. But not if your books are in order!

CRA sends out various types of audit notices, asking for detailed records of what’s been submitted. The most common ones we’ve seen are HST, line item and payroll audits.

On a recent HST audit notice I took note of this instruction : 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦(𝘴) 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘷𝘦. 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵, 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘱𝘵𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘐𝘛𝘊.

If you are a client of mine you have probably already received an email from me saying “CRA won’t accept that as a receipt” and you may have rolled your eyes at me 🙄 …until audit time comes 😉

Keep your receipts, ask your suppliers for an actual invoice, and save everything 💡✅

It’s rainy and bleck outside today..sounds like a perfect day to avoid work and do your bookkeeping!

Here are some quick Money Monday things you can do so that you stay on top of your finances:

💧 Grab your receipts from last week, snap a photo and send them to QBO (or to your bookkeeper)
💧 Record invoice payments and check in on receivables
💧 Find your soft copy receipts and invoices in your inbox, send them to QB or your bookkeeper
💧email your bookkeeper and tell them how awesome they are 😂

Happy Monday!

There are several definitions of reconciliation, depending on the context. This post is about the accounting definition. In my work world, reconciliation is the process of comparing and contrasting 2 sets of records to confirm the data is accurate and consistent.

✅ We should regularly reconcile bank statements to accounting records - to make sure that what we’ve recorded is accurate/not missing/ not duplicated.

✅ We reconcile what’s been billed to a client to costs incurred to make sure that we haven’t double billed or missed billing back something.

✅ If you are direct billing to insurance companies, you’ll want to reconcile what’s been reimbursed to you with what you said SHOULD be reimbursed.

What else do we reconcile? If you are a client of mine, most likely we’ve done lots of reconciling 🔍

I’m big on being organized. If you know me, you’ll understand why. On top of being self employed and supporting 30ish small businesses every month, I have 3 kids, run my own charity, manage my son’s hockey team and am co-chair of parent council. If it’s not in my calendar, it doesn’t get done.

I love my paper planner. I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about it before. On Sundays I look at the week ahead, block off work time, note meetings and obligations and then slot in the work to be done. I leave a bit of flex time for things that pop up.

Today my helper is keeping me company while I plan my week. 🐶 He’s a bit distracting but I’m ok with that 😉

What are 𝗜𝗧𝗖'𝘀? They are sort of like a gift.

As a business owner that is registered for HST, you are allowed to deduct the HST you pay on expenses from the HST you collect on income (𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝑒𝓍𝒸𝑒𝓅𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒷𝑜𝑜𝓀𝓀𝑒𝑒𝓅𝑒𝓇/𝒶𝒸𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝑒𝓍𝓅𝓁𝒶𝒾𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝒹𝑒𝓉𝒶𝒾𝓁).

The HST on those expenses are called Input Tax Credits (ITCs). Why are they important? Because they reduce the amount of HST that you pay to CRA....so like a little gift 🎁

When you're inputting expenses into your accounting software, it's important to know if you have paid HST on an expense or not. 𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕪, expenses from the US do not have HST on them. Monthly subscriptions can be tricky - sometimes they charge HST, sometimes they don't. FaceBook and Google sometimes charge HST and sometimes don't - it depends on a few factors.

The best way to be sure? Look at your 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝗽𝘁. Because I know you have a receipt for each expense you are claiming...right? 😉

"𝒲𝒽𝓎 𝒹𝑜 𝐼 𝑜𝓌𝑒 𝓈𝑜 𝓂𝓊𝒸𝒽 𝐻𝒮𝒯?" 😭 I've had this conversation a few times recently, so I thought I'd do a post about it

If you collect HST, the most important thing to remember is that the money you collect does ⓝⓞⓣ belong to you. You are simply collecting it on behalf of the government.

It may be tempting to keep that money in your chequing account and/or pay down your credit card/suppliers with it - but that can be risky if you aren't keeping on top of what's owing.

My recommendation? Take the HST you collect and put it in a separate account. How and when depends on your business model. Invoicing projects? Move the money aside each time you get paid. Running a retail business? Look at your sales each week or month and move the money aside.

How can I reduce what I pay? When do I pay? When do I file? All great questions. Stay tuned!

Some days I feel like a broken record…but if you receive an invoice that has HST on it…the supplier 🅼🆄🆂🆃 put their HST number on it.

Why?
1. If there isn’t a # on it, there’s a good chance they aren’t registered and shouldn’t be charging HST. Not everyone understands how charging taxes works and charge it because they think they should, not because they are registered.

2. If you are 𝕒𝕦𝕕𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕕 and need to provide your receipts to CRA, the HST claim will be denied if you can’t show the HST number.

So here’s my tip - do not pay the invoice until it has an HST number on it 💡

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted on this account. I seem to post in waves - have some great ideas (and time), and then I run out of ideas and disappear for months.

I’ve been collecting some ideas and will spread out the posts so they last a bit longer 😂

So hi, it’s me again 👋

It's February! February is the month of T's...
T4's - report of employee earnings
T4A's - report of sub-contractor earnings
T5018 - special report for the construction industry

Are you ready?

🥂 Happy New Year! 🥂

Are you looking to start 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 off with clean bookkeeping? Here are some tips to get you started:

💰 Start NOW - don't wait!
💰 Create a system to keep your receipts organized
💰 Review my previous posts about banking, personal expenses and more
💰 Automate what you can - the more manual your bookkeeping, the less likely you'll be to keep up with it

Do you have a December 31 year end? Do you hold inventory? It’s time to get counting! Knowing what you have on hand on the last day of the year will make your books more accurate and make tax time easy peasy 🍋 squeezy.

So start counting those 🥚…it’s super fun, I promise (🤞🏻).

Wishing you the happiest and safest holidays.

‘Tis the season for bank holidays. Have you double checked how the Christmas/Boxing Day/New Years stats impact your payroll? 🎄 🎁

Tip: If your payroll lands on Dec 31, and you need to process 3 business days in advance, you’ll need to do your payroll by December 24th. 💡 🎄

Today is Giving Tuesday and a wonderful opportunity to give back. Whether it’s Zippaport Port Shirts] or or another cause close to your heart, please consider donating today.

Posted • Zippaport Port Shirts] Today, Tuesday November 30th, is Giving Tuesday.

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement, taking place each year after Black Friday. The “Opening day of the giving season,” it’s a time when charities, companies and individuals join together and rally for favourite causes. In the same way that retailers take part in Black Friday, the giving community comes together for GivingTuesday.

On this day of giving, we ask that you consider Zippaport when you look to give back. We would be incredibly honoured to receive your support 💛

Lest we forget

Remembrance Day is a bank holiday, which means that payroll processing times are different this week. If you have payroll deposits happening Thursday/Friday/Monday, be sure to run them a day early 😉