Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
Fixed-price accounting services exist in Canada, but not every accountant offers them. Some quote a flat fee for set jobs and some bill by the hour. Nobody publishes an official count of who does which, so don’t trust anyone who gives you a neat percentage. What you can do is learn to read a fixed quote, because the price matters less than what it covers.
What should a fixed-price accounting quote cover?
A fixed price is a promise about scope. If the scope is vague, the promise is worth little. Before you say yes, get these in writing.
- Which returns and filings are included (T1, T2, GST/HST, T4 slips)
- How many transactions or how many months of bookkeeping the price assumes
- What happens if your records arrive late or messy
- Whether tax is added on top of the quote
- Who handles a letter from the CRA next year
That’s the checklist. Everything else in a quote is detail.
Where does a fixed price usually go wrong?
At the edges. A firm quotes a year-end package for a business with 40 invoices, and you turn up with 400. Or the package covers the T2 but not the GST/HST returns you file every quarter. Or it covers the returns and leaves out the work of answering a CRA review.
That last one is a real gap. Returns can be reviewed after they’re filed, and the CRA says businesses generally have to keep records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to. Whoever deals with questions in year three should be named in the quote.
Ask too who’s on the hook for a late filing. The CRA’s penalty for a late T2 is 5% of the unpaid tax due on the filing date, plus 1% of that amount for each complete month the return is late, up to 12 months, as the CRA’s T2 guide sets out. On $10,000 of unpaid tax, a return three months late would cost $800: $500 for the first 5%, then $100 for each of three months. If the delay came from your accountant’s schedule, you’d want that cost discussed before it happens, not after.
Which jobs suit a fixed price, and which suit hourly?
Fixed pricing suits work that repeats and has edges: an annual tax return, a set of GST/HST filings, a payroll run. Hourly billing suits the open-ended stuff, like cleaning up two years of missing books, where neither of you knows the size of the job yet.
Some firms do a hybrid. A fixed fee for the known core and an hourly rate for extras. That can be the fairest of the lot, as long as the extras are defined and you’ve agreed the rate before any extra work starts.
Fee levels differ a lot by city, firm and job, so there’s no honest “going rate” to quote here. Get two or three quotes and compare the scope lines first, the price second.
How do you compare two quotes properly?
Put them side by side and tick off what each includes. A dearer quote that covers your GST/HST returns can beat a cheaper one that doesn’t, once you add the extras.
Take Marc, who runs a small renovation business near Moncton. One firm quotes a low price for year-end and says nothing else. A second quotes more, but lists the quarterly GST/HST returns, the T4 slips and an hour of help if the CRA writes. Marc asks the first firm what it would charge for those same items, and the cheaper offer stops looking cheap. Same habit, any amount.
Tax is the other trap. If a firm is registered for GST/HST, its fee normally carries tax, which you should confirm in the quote. In Ontario, the GST/HST calculator turns a $1,200 fee into $1,356 with 13% added. A business that can claim input tax credits may get that tax back, and a person filing a personal return can’t, so the same quote costs them differently.
Can you write off a fixed fee?
For business work, often yes. The CRA’s page for line 8860 of form T2125 says you can deduct accounting and legal fees paid for advice and help keeping your records, and fees for preparing and filing your income tax and GST/HST returns, as its page on legal, accounting and other professional fees explains. The same page says fees to buy a capital property go into that property’s cost instead.
A $2,000 deduction on $80,000 of net business income in Ontario takes income tax from $13,233.57 to $12,640.57 in our self-employed tax calculator, a saving of about $593. The calculator ignores EI and business expenses, and your own result depends on your other income.
So a fee that looks like $2,000 costs closer to $1,400 after tax for that person. Put that in the comparison.
If you’d rather test how a fee changes your margin, the profit margin calculator is quick. A $2,400 annual fee on $120,000 of sales is 2% of revenue, and you can see what it does to your bottom line.
When is a fixed price not worth it?
If your books are a mess, don’t insist on one. You’ll get a padded quote or a thin one, and neither helps. Pay hourly to get the files straight first, then move to a flat fee once the year ahead is predictable.
If you pay staff, ask how payroll is priced. Each pay period involves remittances, which you can preview in the payroll remittance calculator, and T4 slips are due by the last day of February. Per-employee pricing and flat pricing behave very differently as you hire.
What if the price goes up after you sign?
It happens, usually when your business grows past what the quote assumed: more invoices, a second GST/HST account, a new employee. Ask the firm up front how it handles that. A good answer is a stated trigger (a stated number of transactions a year) and a written notice before any new charge. A bad answer is “we’ll see.”
It’s also fair to ask whether the fixed fee is locked for one year or two, and whether the firm can raise it at renewal. Put the review date in your calendar so a price change never lands on you in the middle of tax season.
How we checked the figures
Penalty rules, record-keeping periods, deadlines and the professional fees line come from the Canada Revenue Agency, read in October 2026. The tax examples use our 2026 federal and Ontario data. We found nothing official on fee levels or on how many firms offer fixed pricing, so this page makes no claim about either. This site isn’t linked to the CRA, any government or any accounting firm.
Frequently asked questions
Do Canadian accountants offer fixed prices?
Some do for set jobs such as a tax return or payroll run. We found no official figure on how many, so ask each firm directly.
What should a fixed-price quote include?
The returns and filings covered, the volume of records it assumes, what happens if records are late, whether tax is added and who deals with the CRA later.
Is a fixed price cheaper than hourly?
Not automatically. It depends on whether the scope matches your real workload, so compare what is included before you compare the price.
Can I deduct accounting fees?
If the fees relate to earning business income, the CRA T2125 has a professional fees line for legal and accounting fees.
What is the CRA penalty for a late T2?
5% of the unpaid tax due on the filing date, plus 1% of that for each complete month late, up to 12 months.
- Self-employed taxes in Canada: income, CPP and GST
How tax works when you are self-employed in Canada: reporting income and expenses, paying both halves of CPP, instalments and when to register for GST