Trades & Construction Accounting Canada | Instaccountant

Which job actually made money? We know. Does your accountant?

Most contractors see one P&L a year — at tax time, six months after it mattered. We run yours per job, every month. The quote you give next week comes from numbers that actually work. WSIB handled, T5018 filed on time, subs classified right.

★★★★★4.8 190+ Google reviews Authorized CRA Representative

Four problems. Four fixes.

If you've been running trades a few years, you've hit all of these.

Not a tiles grid. The four actual problems that cost contractors money — in the order they usually show up.

The one that costs the most

You can't tell which jobs are profitable.

Year-end shows you cleared $140K on $800K in revenue. Nobody can tell you which jobs got you there — or which ones took a bite out of what the good jobs made.

A job-cost rebuild of your last 12 months — jobs ranked by profit, with the ones that lost money named — usually shows three or four files quietly carrying the operation.

What we do

Every invoice, bill, timesheet and supplier charge gets a job code. By month two, you see a P&L per job. Quotes start coming from numbers instead of gut.

What you'll see

Monthly P&L by job — ranked by actual margin
Labour hours per job — tied to timesheets, not gut
Material markup actuals vs. what you quoted
Sub costs per job — including the ones that went over
Change-order impact — what you charged vs. what it cost

The one CRA audits most

Your subs could be reassessed as employees.

If a sub works your hours, uses your tools, works for nobody else, and doesn't bill you with a contract — CRA will call him an employee. When they reassess, you owe both halves of CPP, both halves of EI, and the income tax that should have been withheld.

Three years at a time. Per sub. The math gets expensive fast.

What we do

We check your subs against the six-factor test before the first T5018 gets filed. The arrangement either stands up or we restructure it. See the next section — it's the one we won't skim over.

What we look at

Who sets the hours
Whose tools
Works for anyone else?
Written contract?
Does he bill you?
Incorporated?

The one that quietly inflates

Your WSIB rate keeps drifting up.

Classification shifted. Claims experience caught up. Or something was reported in the wrong rate group last year and nobody caught it. WSIB rate drift can add $8–15K/year to a mid-size trades operation — invisible unless someone's watching the account.

Reclassification works both ways. Most contractors have never had their rate group reviewed since the day they registered.

What we do

We pull your WSIB history at onboarding and audit the rate group against what you actually do. Reclassification request filed where the group is wrong. Clearance certificates issued the day a sub asks.

What drives your rate

Rate group — your industry classification
Claims experience — your actual loss history
Reporting accuracy — hours in the right bucket
Clearance compliance — subs cleared on each job

The one that scrambles every February

Your T5018 queue is a crisis every year.

Every sub you paid over $500 for construction work needs a slip. If your books don't track them cleanly through the year, February becomes a scramble through supplier files, cheque stubs and e-transfer records — and the late-filing penalty starts at $100 per slip.

The cash sub without a GST number — the one you've been paying for three years — doesn't go away because he's cash. CRA matches the T5018 slips you file against what the sub reports. Missing slips are audit triggers.

What we do

Subs tagged as the bills land, not reconstructed in February. T5018 filed the week after your fiscal year-end closes. No late slips, no penalties, no supplier chasing you in April.

Covered on every slip

Sub name and address
SIN or Business Number
Total paid for construction
GST/HST portion where applicable
Filed on time — not after the deadline

For every sub on your file, we ask these six questions.

CRA uses them. We use them first. If you can't answer three of these on the "sub" side for a given worker, you're looking at an employee — and a reassessment that opens three years at once.

Most contractors have at least one worker who fails this test. We find the ones at risk before CRA does, and either shore up the arrangement or move the person onto T4 cleanly.

You run the jobs. Let us run the books.

Twenty minutes. Free. Tell us the operation — we'll tell you what we'd fix first, whether you hire us or not. No sales pitch, no 40-page proposal.

Talk to an accountant, not a sales rep.

Reply within one business day on your free consultation request.

Fixed fee in writing before any work begins.

CRA authorized representative — we file and respond on your behalf.

Prefer email? info@instaccountant.com
Prefer phone? 647-243-2884 · Mon–Fri 9am–6pm ET

Which job actually made money? We know. Does your accountant?

If you've been running trades a few years, you've hit all of these.

You can't tell which jobs are profitable.

What you'll see

Your subs could be reassessed as employees.

What we look at

Your WSIB rate keeps drifting up.

What drives your rate

Your T5018 queue is a crisis every year.

Covered on every slip

For every sub on your file, we ask these six questions.

Every kind of trade and construction file.

What this actually costs.

Solo tradesperson

Operating contractor Most common

Multi-crew or home builder

Three contractors. Three before and afters.

What happens in your first month with us.

Free call & CRA authorization

Books, WSIB, prior accountant

Chart of accounts rebuilt for job costing

Backlog caught up, subs re-checked

Your first per-job P&L

The questions contractors actually ask.

You run the jobs. Let us run the books.