For an incorporated business, "year-end" is not one task — it is a sequence. Your books get closed and handed off, a CPA adjusts them so they reflect reality, the numbers become financial statements at the right level for whoever will read them, those statements feed your T2 — and your CO-17 in Québec — and the questions that came up along the way turn into planning decisions for next year. Skip or rush a step, and every step after it inherits the problem.
Stamped runs this entire sequence as one engagement — online, handled by CPAs, for incorporated businesses in every province. Year-end packages start at $2,900, with a fixed quote confirmed in writing before work begins.
Step 1: Close the books and hand off your records
Everything downstream depends on the quality of the handoff. You upload — or your bookkeeper sends — bank and credit card statements, loan documents, payroll summaries and your accounting file to our platform. We reconcile what is unreconciled, flag the gaps and confirm the trial balance is complete before anyone starts adjusting. We work with the books you already keep; you do not need to change software or bookkeepers to work with us.
Step 2: Year-end adjustments
Bank-reconciled books are not statement-ready books. A CPA posts the adjusting entries that daily bookkeeping does not capture: amortization, accruals and prepaid expenses, inventory, deferred revenue, and the shareholder account — often the most sensitive number in an owner-managed corporation. This is also where misclassified transactions get caught, before they distort both your statements and your tax return.
Step 3: Financial statements at the right assurance level
The adjusted numbers become year-end financial statements, and the right format depends on who needs to rely on them. If the statements are for you and your tax filing only, an internal financial report (from $2,350) is often enough. If a bank or another third party wants CPA-prepared statements, a compilation engagement (from $2,900) is the standard for most incorporated SMBs. Some lenders, investors and regulators go further and require a review or an audit, which add limited and then reasonable assurance — and cost more, because the CPA does progressively more verification work.
The practical rule: check what your loan agreements, shareholder agreements or funding programs actually require, and do not pay for more assurance than that. Our assurance level calculator asks a few questions about your lenders, investors and obligations and points you to the likely engagement; the engagement pages above cover the details of each.
Step 4: Corporate tax returns — T2 and CO-17
The same adjusted figures flow into your corporate tax returns — the federal T2, plus the CO-17 for corporations with an establishment in Québec — so your statements and your returns tell one consistent story. Bundling this step matters for timing too: the T2 is due six months after year-end, but the federal balance is due two months after year-end (three for eligible CCPCs) and the Québec CO-17 balance two months after year-end for all corporations, so a year-end that drags is a year-end that accrues interest. Our corporate tax deadlines guide maps out every date.
Step 5: Planning follow-ups
Year-end is when planning questions surface: whether your salary-dividend mix still makes sense, whether passive income is threatening your small business deduction, whether instalments need resetting for the new year. Rather than letting them wait twelve months, we log them during the engagement and address them through tax planning — while the new fiscal year is still young enough for decisions to change the outcome.
One team from books to filed returns
You can assemble a year-end from separate providers — a bookkeeper here, a tax preparer there. The bundle exists because every step shares the same numbers: the CPA who adjusted your books prepares statements faster, and the CPA who prepared your statements files a more defensible return. At Stamped, the whole sequence runs on our platform, with CPA answers within 24 hours, a fixed quote up front, and a team headquartered in Quebec City serving incorporated businesses in every province — entirely online.