What Should You Ask Your Bookkeeper Throughout the Year?

You never know what the year may bring for you and your corporation so having an internal financial review process is a great way to stay organized and up to date with your corporation’s revenue, expenses and overall financial status.

Having someone dedicated to keeping your books in check means you get to hand off one of the many tasks you may have as a business owner, but that could also mean missing some day-to-day details.

That leads us to the big question of “what should you be asking your bookkeeper throughout the year?”. Having your books as accurate as possible will not only make life easier month to month but will also do wonders at your year-end when you need to go back to review the numbers (and we’re not just saying that as your accountants!).

If perhaps you are hands on and taking care of the bookkeeping tasks on your own, this is still great information as you review the results each month.

Here is a list of items to check on a regular basis and questions to consider when meeting with your bookkeeper:

Bank reconciliation:

Does your bank balance match your statements each month? Are the transactions, payments and transfers familiar? By comparing your statements and general ledgers, not only will you be confident that they match but you can then check for any discrepancies such as outstanding deposits or cheques.

The extra benefit of having this area current and accurate is that you can plan for future transactions and are less likely to be caught by surprise when cash is needed ASAP.

Credit card reconciliation:

Similar to your bank, it is always a good idea to monitor your corporation’s spending, on what and how much? Is it comparable to prior year or prior month? What factors caused it to increase or decrease? If big items were purchased, such as a vehicle, computers or office equipment, these should be capitalized and treated as long term assets rather than a current expense.

Bank and credit card software linkage:

Is your bank linked properly to your accounting software? You might not be the only one who is guilty of making a change to your bank login which causes it to unlink. When this happens, the software can miss transactions during the time your bank was not connected, resulting in discrepancies at month-end. Using the link/download features within the software can save you a lot of time so it’s important to make sure this is always working.

Accounts receivable:

Does the listing by customer make sense? Do you see any accounts that have been outstanding for awhile? Or any that you know you have already collected? For both accounting and cash flow management purposes, it is a good idea to keep this area up to date.

Accounts payable:

When you review the listing by vendor, do you recognize all the names? Are the amounts what you were expecting? Are there any you have paid that should no longer be on the listing? If so, this likely means that something has been posted incorrectly.

Payroll, GST and income tax payments/installments:

These accounts may require monthly or quarterly payments in order to avoid penalties or interest. As interest and penalties are not tax deductible, it is always important to make sure these are handled on a timely basis.

You may also wish to check your CRA accounts to see if the balances there match your records. Or if there has been any online correspondence that needs to be addressed. CRA recently switched their method of communication, so it is important to watch for the electronic notices.

Profit and loss:

We always highly recommend scanning this from top to bottom to see how it “feels” compared to how you feel the month went. For example, when you look at the revenue, is it the same as other years or months? Is that what you were expecting given how busy you felt or if you had new sales etc.? Most clients understand their business very well and have a very good handle on how much revenue should be recorded.

A similar approach can be applied to expenses. If you know office expenses are normally $X but then it is double that, it is always worth a question. Maybe you saw a new account or an account that had a balance in it when you are not expecting any. The earlier these items are resolved, the better.

Balance sheet:

The balance sheet is always at a specific date. You should expect to see all the items above and perhaps a few other accounts like capital assets or income tax/GST or loans to/from shareholders. These items can be more technical but if you are curious, you can always review the transactions inside those accounts to learn what is creating the ending balance.

This is an item that we go through line-by-line at year-end. So if you are not comfortable here, rest assured that it will be looked at.

Matching retained earnings (this one is a bit trickier):

Do your opening and closing balances match? For example, if your company starts the year with $100,000 in retained earnings, earns a net income of $25,000 and pays $20,000 in dividends, your ending retained earnings should be $105,000 ($100,000 + $25,000 - $20,000). And then this forms the starting point for the next year.

We often find that this area can cause some issue if our external year-end adjustments have not been recorded. It’s good to check this as soon as the year-end is finalized and then you should be good for the remainder of the year. And if you are not sure, we are always happy to verify this and give you some peace of mind.

While producing and reviewing financial reports each month might seem time-consuming and daunting at first, once you and your bookkeeper establish a routine, it will become second nature. The real value lies not in the time spent preparing the reports, but the designated time reviewing and discussing them with your bookkeeper. Because once you know what has occurred, you can start planning and applying to the future.

The above material is current as of August 26, 2025.

The information presented is a general overview and not intended to cover specific situations. You should consult with your professional advisors directly before taking any action.

Vertefeuille Rempel Chartered Professional Accountants LLP, its partners, employees and agents do not accept or assume any liability by anyone relying on the information presented.