Illustrative scenario: a Quebec City practice running CRA and Revenu Québec in parallel
A Quebec City corporate practice files nearly everything twice: a federal T2 to the Canada Revenue Agency and a CO-17 to Revenu Québec, T4 slips beside RL-1 slips, GST alongside QST. The load is not doubled preparation so much as doubled tracking — every client generates two parallel obligation streams and two streams of correspondence.
The firm in this scenario
An archetype, not a client. The figures below describe the shape of the practice being modelled — they are inputs to the scenario, never results.
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Archetype | Corporate practice filing with both CRA and Revenu Québec |
| Location | Quebec City, Quebec |
| Firm size | Five staff — two CPAs and three preparers |
| Client profile | Roughly 70 incorporated clients, nearly all with obligations to both the federal and Quebec administrations |
- Client CRM
- Services catalogue
- Task Master
- Dashboard & SLA
- Reminders
The problem
Every corporate client produces mirrored filings: a T2 federally and a CO-17 to Revenu Québec, T4 slips beside RL-1 slips, GST and QST handled through Quebec's administration. A tracking system built around one row per client silently merges the pair — "the corporate return" reads as done while its Quebec twin sits unfiled, because nothing forced the second obligation to exist as its own item with its own date.
Correspondence doubles the same way. Two administrations means two assessment streams, two online accounts, and notices that arrive on different schedules about what is nominally the same year. Answering one administration closes nothing with the other, and without a per-client record of which body asked what, the partners reconstruct the history from two inboxes every time a follow-up lands.
The workflow, step by step
- 1
Import the corporate book
Clients arrive by CSV with legal name, fiscal year-end and contacts, so both filing streams hang off one client record rather than two lists.
Client CRM with CSV/XLSX import
- 2
Record federal and Quebec filings as separate services
The T2 and the CO-17 are typed as distinct services, each with its own next-due date. The Quebec filing never rides invisibly on the federal row.
Services catalogue
- 3
Open paired projects at each year-end
One project per client per year, with ordered tasks that make the second filing an explicit step: prepare once, file twice, confirm twice.
Task Master projects
- 4
Age both streams on one board
Deadlines colour by proximity regardless of which administration owns them, so a client can show green with CRA and red with Revenu Québec at the same time.
Dashboard & SLA
- 5
Log correspondence against the client
Each notice is noted on the client record with which administration sent it and who responded, so the history is one thread instead of two inboxes.
Client CRM
- 6
Send the team digest
A manual email digest lists what is overdue, due soon and upcoming across both streams, in one message per person.
Reminders
What this changes
Firms in this position typically stop treating the Quebec filing as a shadow of the federal one. Each obligation holds its own row, date and colour, so a client can be visibly finished with one administration and visibly not finished with the other — which is exactly the distinction a dual-administration practice needs its board to show.
About this scenario
Related reading
Where this applies
Start running a tidier, deadline-proof practice.
Set up your firm in minutes. No credit card to start.