Bookkeeping Software for Quebec Accounting Firms

How does bookkeeping software work for firms in Quebec?

Revenu Québec administers both the GST/HST and the QST in Quebec under an agreement with the federal government — the only province where the provincial revenue agency collects the federal tax. Quebec registrants report GST and QST together to Revenu Québec, not to the CRA.

For a bookkeeping practice that means one filing relationship carrying two taxes: GST and QST are reported together to Revenu Québec rather than to the CRA. The close feeds a combined return, and the correspondence — assessments, notices, information requests — arrives from the provincial agency rather than from the CRA, which changes where the firm looks when something goes wrong.

What is different about running a practice in Quebec?

Four things a firm working Quebec files should be able to state without looking them up. Each is verified against a primary source, linked at the foot of this page.

Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec is the provincial body; 228,622 of Quebec's 233,235 employer businesses were small businesses as of December 2024.

• Two tax administrations, every client — A Quebec corporation files a T2 with the Canada Revenue Agency and a CO-17 with Revenu Québec. A Quebec individual files a T1 with the CRA and a TP-1 with Revenu Québec. Every Quebec engagement carries two filing relationships instead of one.
• Revenu Québec collects the GST too — Quebec is the only province where the provincial revenue agency administers the federal GST/HST alongside its own QST, so Quebec registrants report both taxes to Revenu Québec.
• A lower personal instalment threshold — Quebec residents must pay personal tax instalments when net tax owing exceeds $1,800, against $3,000 for residents of every other province and territory — so more Quebec clients are instalment clients.
• Bill 96 francization obligations — Under Quebec's Law 14 (Bill 96), businesses with 25 or more employees in Quebec for six months must register with the OQLF and undergo francization, covering workplace communications, tools and IT systems. Non-compliance carries fines and exclusion from Quebec government contracts.

Which CRA deadlines apply?

These rules are federal and apply in every province and territory. Where a due date falls on a weekend or public holiday, the CRA treats the next business day as on time — compute the shifted date each year rather than carrying the calendar forward.

Managing bookkeeping software across a client book in Quebec

A bookkeeping practice needs the month to run itself: each client's close on its own cadence, with the review step and the sales-tax return attached to the same file rather than tracked in three places.

A six-person Montreal practice models every corporate client as three obligations rather than one: the federal T2, the Quebec CO-17, and a combined GST/QST return filed with Revenu Québec. Personal clients carry two returns, T1 and TP-1. The failure mode is not forgetting a deadline — it is maintaining two calendars that quietly disagree, so the practice keeps both administrations' dates on a single board and sends client correspondence in the client's language on the firm's own letterhead.

How SpidNums handles it

SpidNums models the firm as clients, services and work. Assigning a typed service to a Quebec client is what generates the recurring projects, the stages and the reminders — the cadence is recorded once rather than remembered each period.

Every open obligation is then ranked by how close its due date sits and coloured accordingly, so the morning question — what is late, what is close, what is fine — is answered by looking.

• Per-client month-end close projects on a recurring cadence
• Typed services with reporting frequency driving the work
• Colour-coded SLA board ranked by deadline proximity
• Assignment and live workload per bookkeeper
• Branded client requests and email digests
• CSV/XLSX client import and export

Where this goes wrong

Bookkeeping practices rarely fail at the bookkeeping. They fail at the handover points, where a file changes hands or a client changes shape.

• A client crosses the $30,000 small-supplier threshold and becomes a registrant, but the file still runs on the pre-registration checklist.
• A client's reporting period changes and the cadence stays where it was, so the next return is prepared against the old deadline.
• The review step is skipped in a busy month because it is a habit rather than a stage with an owner.
• A file waiting on client documents sits in someone's pile instead of ageing visibly on a board.

What SpidNums does not do

SpidNums is not a general ledger. Your clients' books stay in QuickBooks, Xero or whatever ledger you already use — SpidNums manages the work around them: who owns the close, what stage it is at, and what is due next.

If your firm already runs a tracking system it trusts, the honest answer is that you do not need this one. The pages on this site are written to help you decide, not to pretend every firm has the same problem.