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Virtual accounting means you share your bank feeds, invoices and receipts online, and a bookkeeper or accountant you may never meet does the books, filings and reports from wherever they sit. The CRA doesn’t care where they sit. It cares that your records exist, are readable and stay available for six years after the tax year they relate to.
That’s the whole idea, and most of the work is in the handover. Here’s how it plays out in practice.
What do you actually hand over?
Three things, mostly. Access to the money (bank and card data, usually read only), the paper trail behind it (invoices, receipts, payroll reports), and permission to talk to the CRA for you. The first two come down to trust and setup. The third has a proper CRA process, covered below.
What you keep is the decisions. Whether a $4,000 purchase is equipment or a repair, whether the owner is paid by salary or dividend, whether to register for GST/HST early: a remote accountant can advise, but you’re the one who signs.
Picture Dana, who runs a small landscaping outfit outside Winnipeg. She connects her business bank account, snaps receipts on her phone at the hardware store, and her bookkeeper in another province reconciles it all on the weekend. Dana never visits an office. She still has to tell the bookkeeper that last Tuesday’s deposit was a customer’s cash payment, because nothing in the bank feed says so.
How does a virtual accountant get into your CRA account?
Not by borrowing your password, and you shouldn’t offer it. The CRA lets you authorize a representative. The fastest route is My Business Account: sign in, go to Profile, and add the person under authorized representatives. If your accountant starts the request through Represent a Client, you’ll see it waiting and have to confirm or deny it in the same account, under “Confirm pending requests”.
The slow route is paper form AUT-01, and it only gives offline access, meaning phone, mail, fax and in person. For a firm working online, that’s rarely what you want.
Ending the arrangement is easier than people expect. The CRA says that removing a representative online immediately cancels their access, and you can do it through My Business Account, as its page on cancelling a representative’s authorization explains. Put a reminder in your calendar to review who has access once a year.
Which tasks usually move online?
Almost everything that starts as data. The table shows the split you’d expect, based on what each task needs. It isn’t a promise about any one provider, since services differ from firm to firm.
| Task | Can be done remotely | What you still supply |
|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeping and reconciliation | Yes | Receipts, explanations for odd items |
| GST/HST returns | Yes | Sales you made outside your bank feed |
| Payroll remittances | Yes | Hours, new hires, terminations |
| Corporate tax return | Yes | Approval and signature |
| Cash counts, stock counts | No | Someone on site |
What does it look like with real numbers?
Say you invoice $1,500 for a month of consulting in Ontario. The GST/HST calculator shows $195 of HST on top, so the client pays $1,695. In Alberta the same invoice carries $75 of GST and totals $1,575. Your virtual accountant should catch which one applies. The reverse happens too: if you don’t tell them you sold to a client in another province, they can’t.
Payroll is the other place where the details bite. Two employees on $3,000 each per pay period, paid every two weeks in Ontario, mean $1,922.06 to remit each period, according to the payroll remittance calculator. That’s the tax and contributions held back from the employees plus your own share. A remote bookkeeper can prepare that, but the money still has to leave your account on time.
If you’re a corporation, the corporate tax calculator gives a rough yearly bill to plan cash against. It’s a ballpark. Ask your accountant for the real figure.
Where do virtual arrangements go wrong?
Usually at the handover, not the technology. Receipts pile up in someone’s glovebox. A second bank account never gets connected. The accountant works from what they can see, so what they can’t see doesn’t get counted.
Records are the other trap. The CRA says to keep records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, and that covers files in computer systems as well as paper. Records held by a third party still have to be produced if the CRA asks. So don’t let your only copy live in a provider’s login. Export a full set each year and store it yourself.
You are responsible for making sure adequate records are kept even if a bookkeeper, accountant, Internet transaction manager, or application service provider keeps your business records for you.
Keeping Records (RC188), canada.ca
And read the engagement letter. Who owns the files if you leave? Who files late returns and pays the penalty if you didn’t send the data? Fees and promises vary, so get those answers in writing.
What should you ask a virtual firm before signing up?
Start with how they store your documents and who on their side can see them. Ask where your files sit, whether you can download everything on request, and what happens to your data if you stop paying. Then ask how quickly they answer questions, and whether you get one named person or a rotating queue.
It also helps to know the calendar. A virtual bookkeeper can only file on time if the data reaches them on time, so agree on a monthly cut-off, such as the 10th, for sending last month’s receipts. Most of the late-filing stress in small businesses comes from a missing bank statement, not from the accounting itself.
Where this information comes from
Record retention comes from the CRA publication on keeping records (RC188), and the representative steps from the CRA’s pages on authorizing and cancelling a representative. Tax and remittance figures come from our own calculators, which use 2026 rates from the federal and provincial governments, and each is only as good as the inputs you give it. This site isn’t connected to the CRA, any government or any accounting firm.
Frequently asked questions
Is a virtual accountant allowed to deal with the CRA for me?
Yes, once you authorize them. You can do it in My Business Account, or they can send a request through Represent a Client and you confirm it there.
How long must I keep my business records?
Six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, unless the CRA gives written permission to destroy them earlier. Electronic records count.
Can my accountant keep all my records for me?
They can hold copies, but the CRA can ask you for records held by third parties. Keep your own full set.
What if I only want to authorize offline access?
Form AUT-01 gives access by phone, mail, fax and in person only. It doesn't give online access.
Do virtual firms cost less?
We couldn't verify fee levels for any firm, so we make no claim. Get written quotes and compare what each one includes.
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