Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
Weekly is the best rhythm for most small businesses, and monthly is the slowest one that still works. The CRA sets deadlines and a duty to keep records, but it doesn’t say how often you must do the books, so your bookkeeping frequency comes from the due dates you have to hit.
What decides how often bookkeeping is done?
Three things: how many transactions you have, whether you charge GST/HST, and whether you pay staff. A freelancer with ten invoices a month can sit down once a week for half an hour. A shop with daily card sales needs the sales entered at least weekly, or the pile gets ugly fast.
The other driver is the calendar. If you’re registered for GST/HST, a return is due for every reporting period, even a period with no sales. If you have employees, you owe deductions on a schedule that has nothing to do with when you feel like catching up.
Which deadlines set the pace?
Here’s what the CRA publishes for the main ones. Your own dates show in your CRA account, so treat this table as a map and not a diary.
| Obligation | Due date |
|---|---|
| GST/HST, monthly or quarterly filer | 1 month after the reporting period ends |
| GST/HST, annual filer | 3 months after the fiscal year end |
| Payroll, regular remitter | 15th of the next month |
| Payroll, quarterly remitter | April 15, July 15, October 15, January 15 |
| Sole proprietor with a December 31 year end | Pay by April 30, file by June 15 (GST/HST) |
A due date on a weekend or holiday moves to the next business day. The 2025 return dates are the latest confirmed cycle, and the 2026 ones aren’t out yet. The tax calendar on this site keeps the usual dates in one place, and the CRA’s page on GST/HST reporting requirements and deadlines has the official wording.
Is weekly bookkeeping worth the effort?
Yes, for anyone who sells a lot or pays people. Small errors show up while you can still remember the sale. A payment that never arrived, or a deposit you can’t match, is a five minute question on Friday and a mystery in three months.
Weekly also keeps the GST/HST number honest. On a $1,000 sale in Ontario the tax is $130, so the customer pays $1,130. Multiply that by a few hundred sales and a quarterly guess can be off by real money. The GST/HST calculator gives you the split for any amount.
Picture Maya, who runs a coffee cart in Halifax. A double-double is a few bucks, but she sells hundreds a week, and a dozen mismatched card deposits a month would be a headache to untangle in April. Fifteen minutes each Friday keeps the pile small.
When is monthly enough?
Monthly works when you have few transactions and no payroll. Pick a fixed day, say the fifth, and do all of last month in one go: enter everything, match the bank statement line by line, and file the receipts. Don’t let it turn into every other month. That’s when people lose track of which expenses were personal.
And if you file GST/HST quarterly, don’t wait for the quarter to end. Do the books monthly, so the return is a five minute job on the last day.
A payroll example
Say you pay one employee $3,000 every two weeks in Ontario. The payroll remittance calculator shows $961.03 to send in per pay period: about $732.62 held back from the employee and $228.41 of your own share. That adds up to roughly $2,082 a month. A regular remitter has to pay it by the 15th of the following month, so the pay run has to be in the books before then. Payroll makes weekly or biweekly bookkeeping close to a requirement.
Your remitter type depends on how much you withheld in an earlier year, and the CRA assigns it. Check your statement of account, because the schedule that applies to you may differ from the one above.
Late is expensive. The CRA’s employers’ guide sets the penalty at 3% if the money arrives one to three days late, 5% for four or five days, 7% for six or seven days, and 10% beyond that. On $2,082, a 10% penalty is about $208 for being a week and a day behind. That’s a lot of coffee.
Mistakes when you space the work out
- Doing books only at tax time. You’ll reconstruct a year from memory, and you’ll miss expenses.
- Skipping bank matching. It’s the fastest way to catch a duplicate charge or a missing deposit.
- Treating a quiet month as a skipped month. A GST/HST return is still due when nothing happened, and the CRA calls that a nil return.
- Filing paper receipts in a shoebox. Photograph them the day you get them, as the bookkeeping simplification guide explains.
If you’re self-employed, the self-employed tax calculator shows what a year of income leaves you owing, which is a good reason to know your numbers before spring.
The sources behind this page
Filing frequency and due dates come from the Canada Revenue Agency‘s pages on GST/HST reporting requirements and on remitting payroll deductions, read in October 2026. The payroll and sales tax examples come from the calculators on this site. This site isn’t a government service and doesn’t speak for one.
Frequently asked questions
Is monthly bookkeeping enough?
It can be, if you have few transactions and no employees. Pick a fixed day each month and match the bank statement line by line.
Do I file GST/HST if I had no sales?
Yes. If you're registered, a return is due for every reporting period, even one with no activity.
When is GST/HST due?
One month after the end of a monthly or quarterly reporting period, and three months after year end for annual filers.
When are payroll deductions due?
A regular remitter pays by the 15th of the next month. Quarterly remitters pay on April 15, July 15, October 15 and January 15.
Does the CRA say how often I must do my books?
Not on the pages we read. It sets deadlines and a duty to keep records, so your schedule has to fit those dates.
- 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