Updated Checked by the Tax-Services.ca editorial team How we check
You measure accounting automation by comparing a few numbers from before and after: hours spent per task, mistakes caught late, and how fast you can close a month. If you don’t write the “before” numbers down first, you’ll be guessing a year from now.
What should you count before you switch anything on?
Pick three or four jobs that eat time. Bank matching, entering supplier bills, payroll runs and chasing receipts are the usual suspects. Then track them for one ordinary month, by hand, with a stopwatch or a rough log. It feels fussy. It’s also the only baseline you’ll ever get.
Count errors the same way. How many entries did you fix after the fact? How many times did a GST/HST figure need correcting before you filed? A late correction costs more than the original entry, so it belongs in the tally.
| Measure | How to get it | What a good change looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Hours per task | Log time for a full month, before and after | Fewer hours that you actually spend elsewhere |
| Corrections after posting | Count journal fixes and reversed entries | Fewer, not just faster |
| Days to close the month | Last bank statement to reports ready | Shorter and steady |
| Cost per period | Software fees plus your own time at a fair rate | Lower than the old cost |
| Records you can export | Try a full export of one year | Complete, readable, no login needed |
Here’s what a baseline looks like on paper. Say Luc, who runs a small bakery in Moncton, logs one month before automating: 12 hours on bills and bank matching, 9 corrections after posting, and 8 days from the last bank statement to finished reports. Three months after the switch he logs 7 hours, 4 corrections and 5 days. That’s a 5 hour drop, which is 5 out of 12, or about 42%. It’s a real result because he wrote the first month down.
How do you turn saved hours into dollars?
Here’s an invented example, so use your own figures. Say the setup and first year of a tool cost $5,000, and the work it replaces would have cost $8,000. The ROI calculator gives a gain of $3,000, which is a 60% return in that first year.
That sounds great until you ask whether the $8,000 was real. Time saved is only money if you’d otherwise have paid for it, or if you used it on something that earns. Ten hours a month freed up on a salaried bookkeeper’s schedule doesn’t lower the payroll by a cent.
The profit margin calculator helps with the other side. If your margin is thin, a saving of a few hundred dollars a month matters more than it does at a fat margin, so the same tool can deserve a different verdict for two businesses.
Do the automated numbers still match reality?
Speed means nothing if the output drifts. Run a spot check every quarter. Take one employee and rerun the payroll by hand with the payroll remittance calculator, then compare income tax, CPP and EI held back with what your software produced. Do the same for a sale: put the price through the GST/HST calculator and see whether the tax on the invoice agrees. On a $200 sale in Ontario it should show $26 of HST.
A difference doesn’t always mean the software is wrong. Rounding, a mid-year rate change or a tax code set up wrongly can each cause it. The point is that you find out on a Tuesday in March, not during a review.
Does automation change what the CRA expects from your records?
No. The CRA’s guidance on how long and where to keep records says to keep them for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, unless it has agreed to let you destroy them sooner. It counts records from accounting systems, point-of-sale systems, internet-based systems and tax software alongside paper.
It also says you must make all your records available on request, including computerized ones and records held by third parties. And if a provider keeps your books, the responsibility for adequate records stays with you.
So add one test to your scorecard. Could you hand over six years of readable records if you cancelled the subscription tomorrow? If the answer is “I think so”, export a year now and open the file.
How long should you wait before judging the result?
About three months, and then again at a year. The first month is noisy, since everyone is learning screens and fixing rules. Month three shows the habit. The one-year mark catches the things that only happen once, like year-end, the first quarterly remittance or the January rate changes. Put both dates in the calendar when you switch, with the baseline numbers next to them, so the comparison takes ten minutes instead of a day of digging.
Which mistakes make the results look better than they are?
Measuring in month one is the classic. Setup drags, staff learn the new screens, and the numbers look worse than the truth. Wait three months before you judge.
Leaving out review time is the next one. If someone still checks every automated entry, that hour counts. So does the time spent fixing a rule that miscoded fuel as office supplies.
And don’t confuse a tidy dashboard with a correct return. Automation can repeat a wrong tax treatment perfectly, thousands of times. If you’re unsure how a category should be taxed, ask an accountant to review the rules once, then let the software apply them.
We couldn’t confirm anything about specific products, their prices or the savings they deliver, so we make no claim about any of them. The method above works with any tool.
The sources behind this page
The six-year record rule and the points on computerized and third-party records come from the Canada Revenue Agency‘s guide to keeping records, read in 2026. The example figures come from the calculators on this site, and the $5,000 and $8,000 amounts, along with Luc’s bakery, are invented for illustration. For related tax jobs, the self-employed tax calculator shows what a small business owner pays personally.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I wait before judging the results?
Give it about three months. The first month mixes setup time and learning, so it makes any tool look worse than it is.
What is the easiest number to start with?
Hours per month on one repeated job, such as bank matching. Log it by hand for a month before you change anything.
Do I still have to keep records if software stores them?
Yes. The CRA says to keep records for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, including computerized ones. Responsibility stays with you even when a provider holds them.
Can I trust the tax figures the software produces?
Check a few by hand each quarter. Rerun one employee's payroll and one invoice through a calculator and compare.
Does saved time always mean saved money?
No. It only saves money if you would have paid for those hours or you used them on paid work.
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