Behind on Your Books? A Catch-Up Plan for BC Contractors
Months behind on your bookkeeping? A plain-English catch-up plan for BC contractors: what to gather, what order to work in, and what being late can cost.
You're not the only one
If your books stopped somewhere around spring, you're in good company. The work comes first, the receipts go in the truck, and by fall the pile feels too big to start. Most trades owners we talk to are a few months behind by now. Some are more than a year behind. The good news: catching up is a process, not a mystery. Here's the order we'd work in, and the free tools that make it faster.
Why being behind costs more than time
Being behind isn't just stressful. If you file a tax return late and you owe a balance, CRA adds a late-filing penalty of 5% of what you owe, plus 1% for every full month it's late, up to 12 months. That's before interest.
There's a quieter cost too. Expenses you can't prove are expenses you can't claim, so you end up paying tax on money you never kept. And CRA generally expects you to keep your records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, so a shoebox of faded receipts won't hold up well if anyone asks.
Step 1: Gather your statements first
Start with bank and credit card statements, not receipts. Download every month for every account the business uses, including the card you sometimes put business costs on. Statements are the backbone of the catch-up: every dollar in or out shows up there, so nothing gets missed.
Step 2: Get the statements into a spreadsheet
Most banks only give you a PDF. Retyping it line by line is where catch-ups stall. Our free Statement Converter does that part for you: drop in the PDF and it lists every transaction, then lets you copy them into a spreadsheet or save a CSV. It checks itself against the totals printed on your statement and shows green when they match. It works with text PDFs downloaded from your bank, not scans or photos. Try it free at murtaghco.ca/statement-converter.
Step 3: Work oldest month first
Go month by month, starting with the oldest. Give each line a category (materials, fuel, subcontractors, tools, phone and so on) and mark anything personal so it stays out of the business. If you don't know what a charge was, flag it and keep going. A short list of question marks is fine. Stopping for each one is how a catch-up dies.
Step 4: Match the big items to paper
You don't need to chase every coffee receipt first. Start with the big ones: tool and equipment purchases, vehicle costs, and subcontractor invoices. If construction is your main business, you'll also need those subcontractor totals for T5018 slips. For your truck, a kilometre log is what backs up the business share of your vehicle costs.
Step 5: Keep it from happening again
Once you're caught up, the goal is to stay that way with about 10 minutes a month. Our free Contractor Books Workbook gives you a simple monthly routine in a spreadsheet you already know how to use. Get it at murtaghco.ca/contractor-books-workbook.
Or let us catch you up, free
Until November 8, we're giving one Okanagan trades business a clean slate: up to 12 months of bookkeeping caught up (up to 500 transactions), plus a free report on your business, built from your caught-up books. Everyone who enters gets 20% off any work in their first 6 months with us if they sign on by January 31, 2027. It takes about 60 seconds to enter at murtaghco.ca/clean-slate.
How Murtagh & Co. Can Help.
If you'd rather hand the pile to someone else, that's what our catch-up bookkeeping service is for. We work through your statements, reconcile every account, flag what's missing, and give you a flat quote before we start, so there are no surprises. Once you're current, we can keep you there month to month or just at year-end, depending on your situation.
Murtagh & Co. is run by Devon Murtagh, CFA, FRM, a former trades business owner. He ran a roofing and siding business and did the books after the real work was done, so he knows how fast it piles up when the job site always comes first.
Prefer to talk it through? Book a free 30-minute call at a time that works for you, or reach out at info@murtaghco.ca.