The questions firms actually ask

No. We do not contact your clients, and we do not solicit them during the engagement or after it ends. That commitment is written into our agreement as a non-solicitation clause, not left as a handshake. Your client relationship is the asset you are protecting, and it is the entire reason our model works.

Yours. We are a behind-the-scenes team. Working papers, close packages and reports are prepared for your firm to deliver under your own brand. We have no client-facing presence on your engagements at all.

In Canada. The people who work your files are here, which means questions come back inside your working day rather than overnight, and whoever is reconciling a GST/HST account has seen one before. Your files are not routed offshore.

Files go through a documented internal review under the supervision of a Chartered Professional Accountant before they are handed back. You are receiving reviewed work, which is the difference between delegating a task and delegating a result.

We do not file returns — those stay with your firm. What we do is keep the underlying ledger accurate: sales tax is tracked and coded correctly through the period and reconciled to the accounts, so when your firm prepares the filing, the numbers are already supportable. Tax filing, professional advice and sign-off remain your firm’s responsibility.

Yours, for the ledger. Your firm or client keeps the QuickBooks Online, Xero or Sage subscription and adds us as a user — we do not ask anyone to migrate. Source documents come to us through a secure workspace we provide, so your firm does not have to run a portal of its own. Running something else? Ask on the call; it is usually a short answer either way.

Your firm or your client owns the ledger subscription and invites us in at the permission level you choose — so you can see what we can reach and revoke it yourself at any time. Source documents move through a dedicated workspace we set up for your firm alone, never through personal email or messaging apps, and never onto personal devices. Confidentiality and non-solicitation are covered by a signed agreement, and all access is revoked when an engagement ends.

You start on one file, so what you are risking is one month of one file’s fee — not your book of business. If the work does not meet your standard, you stop there and nothing else has moved. There is no long-term lock-in designed to survive your disappointment.

The realistic gain is the processing time: the transaction entry, the coding, the chasing of unmatched items, the reconciliation grind. Your review time does not disappear, and it should not — but reviewing a finished close package is a fraction of the hours that building one takes.

No. The first file is normal paid work at the standard monthly rate, and it gets the same processing, review and close package as every file after it. Starting on one file keeps your risk small, but it is an engagement rather than an audition — free sample work tends to be exactly as thorough as it is paid for, which is not the standard we want you judging us on.

One file for one month, billed at the standard rate. Most firms start there, review the close package, and expand at their own pace. We would rather earn the second file than negotiate for it up front.

Onboarding a first file typically takes a few business days once system access is in place — most of that is documenting your firm’s conventions so the work matches your standard from the first period rather than the third.