Business books are for self-employed people and small business owners. They take your business transactions and file each one on a line of form T2125, the form sole proprietors use to report business income and expenses. Included with Thrive and Thrive Duo.
Set up your books
Open the Business page
Once you have a business account, Business is in the sidebar (on a phone, under More). If not, search for business or T2125 with Ctrl K (⌘K on a Mac) and open Business.
Answer a few questions
How the business is set up (Self-employed (sole proprietor), Partnership or Corporation), your province, and whether you're registered for GST/HST. Most questions are optional and can wait.
Choose Start my books
Then mark your business bank accounts and cards as business on Accounts. Their money comes into the books on its own.
Know what to do next
The Overview opens with a short checklist that gets the year ready for tax time: tell us about your business, put every transaction on a tax line, give your home office and vehicle shares (only if you have those costs), keep a receipt for each cost, record the GST/HST you paid (if you're registered), and download your tax pack. The step to do next has its own button, so you always know where to go. Once the books are complete, the checklist folds into one line.
The six tabs
Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
Overview | The checklist, the year's revenue, expenses and net income (with how much money has no tax line yet), each tax line's total, month-by-month bars and the next tax dates. |
Review | Business money that still needs a tax line, one merchant at a time. The tab shows how many are waiting. |
Transactions | Every business transaction of the year. Search by merchant, account, line or amount; show To sort, Filed or Owner money; filter by tax line, account, money in or out, No receipt or No GST/HST (if registered); and sort. |
Budget | A monthly plan for the business. See the business budget. |
Tax year | The year as the return asks for it, plus the tax pack and receipts downloads. |
Settings | Your business details, home office and vehicle shares, and your business accounts. |
Use the arrows beside the year to look at an earlier year.
Coming up on the Overview lists your next tax dates. For sole proprietors and partners, that's paying income tax by April 30 and filing by June 15, the four instalment dates if you said you pay by instalments, and your GST/HST dates if you're registered. A date that falls on a weekend moves to the Monday.
Review: sort what needs a line
A business transaction gets a line from its category when the category makes it clear, such as rent, utilities or travel. When it can't tell (shopping could be supplies or a laptop), it waits in Review. Money without a line is left out of every total until it has one.
Review gathers those transactions by merchant, biggest first, so one answer files every charge from a merchant. For each one you can:
- Take the suggestion with Yes, that's right. It's the line you filed that merchant under before, or a line that's plain from the name (an airline is travel, a CRA payment isn't deductible). A suggestion is never applied until you choose it.
- Pick one of your usual lines, or Every line… to search them all.
- Choose Personal for money that isn't the business's. On a business account, money you took out is an owner draw and money you put in is a contribution.
- Untick any charge that's different: it stays for later.
- Tick Always do this to make a rule, so that merchant's new charges on that account are filed the same way as they come in.
- Choose Skip for now to come back to it later.
Every answer shows at once, and Undo in the message puts it back. On a computer, Enter takes the suggestion, 1 to 5 pick a line, P marks it personal and S skips.
Change a transaction's line
On Transactions, each row's tax line is a button: pick a new line and it's filed. A row with no line shows its suggestion beside it, one tap away. Tick several rows to file them under one line together or mark them personal, or use a row's ⋯ menu to see only that merchant, mark it personal, or file that merchant there from now on.
Open a transaction to see all of it: it opens on its Business page, where you can add its receipt and GST/HST, choose Tax line, or choose Follow the category to go back to the suggestion.
Equipment that lasts for years goes under Capital purchase (claimed as CCA). It's listed but not expensed: your accountant works out the capital cost allowance. A corporation files a T2 return, so its books use the same lines without T2125 numbers and don't list due dates.
Home office and vehicle
In Settings, give your Home office share (the workspace's area divided by your home's area) and your Vehicle business use (business kilometres divided by all kilometres). Costs on the business-use-of-home and motor vehicle lines then count at those shares. Business parking counts in full.
Home and car costs are often paid from a personal account. Open one, choose Business, keep Personal and choose A home or car cost you claim a share of? to pick the line, then Save. The books claim your share, and your personal budget still counts all of it.
Until you give a share, those costs count nothing. The checklist and Review both point you to Settings to add it.
How Finly Money estimates
- Meals and entertainment count at 50% on the return.
- Business-use-of-home can't create or increase a loss. Anything over the limit is shown as carrying forward to next year.
- Money moving between you and the business is an owner draw or contribution, never income or a cost. A personal purchase on a business account counts as an owner draw.
- If you're registered for GST/HST, sales and costs are shown without the tax. See how GST/HST works.