EXPERTISE
Our expertise lies in our full suite
of services and specialized industries across Ottawa, Toronto and beyond…
and we have a little something
for your “big idea” too.
SERVICES
With the increased complexity in Canadian tax laws, a professional qualified accountant is necessary to assist in planning and complying with personal and business tax requirements. Our designated Tax Compliance & Planning team will provide you with the latest information, education on developments and possible tax provisions that need to be factored into your returns.
If you are like most taxpayers, you want to file your annual tax return properly to avoid the hassles of dealing with the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). However, if you have fallen behind on your tax filings, you might be worried about how best to get on track with your tax obligations and how to deal with the CRA. In either case, you probably also want to ensure you are benefiting from all mechanisms that can legitimately reduce what you owe in taxes.
Over and above the standard personal tax realities, our team is ready to guide you on all other personal considerations, among them:
- optimum pension income splitting
- real estate investments
- deceased taxpayers
- matters concerning disabilities
- cross-border tax transactions, particularly with the United States
Are you a US citizen? Are you a Canadian conducting business in the US, or moving to or returning from the US? Do you own real estate in the US, or are you a ‘snowbird’?
If your answer is ‘yes’ to any of these situations, you have US tax filing obligations. Logan Katz’s tax team is well versed in the preparation of Canadian and US tax returns.
As a business owner/manager, you need your annual corporate tax return prepared accurately and on time. You likewise want to be certain you are benefiting from all the tax mechanisms that can legitimately save you and your company tax.
Our designated team of corporate income tax accountants will work with you to prepare your tax return and develop a tax plan that strategically takes into account all pertinent details about you and your company. We have extensive experience working with a multitude of different industries in Ottawa, Toronto and abroad
As a business owner/manager, you may have tax obligations relating to commodity and payroll taxes. We will guide you through indirect tax considerations for your business with the help of our in-house commodity tax and payroll tax experts.
If you wish to set up business operations in Canada, we can assist in ensuring compliance with Canadian tax authorities, and working with your local legal advisors and your parent company advisors to ensure a smooth implementation in Canada. . With our expertise and knowledge, we can provide guidance on considerations such as:
- Operating as a branch versus a corporate subsidiary
- Tax treaty issues
- Taxation of foreign parent company staff in Canada
- Scientific Research and Experimental Development tax credits
- Taxation filings
- Transfer pricing
If you are a non-resident corporation selling into Canada, there are a number of issues you need to be aware of to ensure you are compliant with Canadian tax authorities. With our expertise and knowledge, we can provide guidance on considerations such as:
- Taxation filings required
- Sales and commodity tax
If you are a Canadian corporation selling into the U.S., there are a number of issues you need to be aware of to ensure you are compliant with U.S. and Canadian tax authorities. With our expertise and knowledge, we can provide guidance on considerations such as:
- Taxation filings
- Transfer pricing
We have extensive experience with successful SR&ED claims for clients in a wide variety of industries. We understand the rules around SR&ED, the filing process, resources available, and strategies to maximize the SR&ED claims. We help you identify potentially eligible activities, prepare claims, and work closely with CRA in follow up of claims.
An assurance report for your business financial statements provides a degree of assurance that financial information in the statements is accurate and complete.
Why do you need an assurance report?
Boards of directors, lending authorities and certain other third parties usually require businesses to submit financial statements and an assurance report issued by a licensed public accountant.
You might also be asked by a funder or regulatory agent to provide assurance on your business entity’s compliance with statutes, regulations, or agreements. Logan Katz offers two types of accounting engagements that result in our issuing of an assurance report:
Review Engagement
For review engagements, we ask questions, conduct analytical procedures, and hold discussions to assess whether your business entity’s financial information is plausible. Review engagements are a cost-effective way for business entities to issue financial statements that satisfy the needs of creditors (usually financial institutions).
Audit
An audit is the highest level of assurance work public accounting firms like Logan Katz offer. We conduct audits according to a comprehensive set of standards, referred to in Canada as Generally Accepted Auditing Standards. These standards harmonize with International Auditing Standards.
The audit engagement involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence to assess whether your businesses financial information is fairly presented, in all material respects, in accordance with a defined financial reporting framework in Canadian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
Not-for-profit organizations (including registered charities), and businesses with external boards of directors and/or significant external financing from shareholders or lenders generally, require audits. Publicly traded companies do as well.
Whatever type of business entity you operate – a corporation, partnership, unincorporated business, not-for-profit organization (including registered charities) – you may be required to prepare financial statements. Most businesses and not-for-profit organizations require the involvement of a public accountant to prepare their financial statements.
Generally, financial statements include:
- a balance sheet
- an income statement
- a statement of retained earnings or net assets, and
- a statement of cash flows
Financial statements are essential:
- to assist the owner or management team in their decision-making
- to accompany tax filings
Financial Reporting
- Preparation of monthly financial statements (eg. income statement, balance sheet, and other reports) with commentary on variances and other significant matters.
- Preparation of a monthly/quarterly board reporting package tailored to meet specific needs or information requirements over and above the standard financial statements.
- Discussion and setup of proper reporting format.
- Regular update meetings (monthly/biweekly) on issues, challenges and successes pertaining to finance, accounting, tax and general business matters.
- Preparation of budgets and cash flow forecasts/projections.
- Support in preparing working papers required for year-end audit or review engagement.
We offer a full range of business advisory and consulting services in Ottawa and Toronto, aimed at helping you achieve your business, organizational, and personal financial goals. Inspired by your vision and backed by our experience, we provide you with the support and direction you need to move forward. We help liase with your entire advisory support team – including bankers, lawyers, and other professionals – to ensure full alignment and progress towards your goals. Through our business advisory services, we become your true business partners: a go-to resource you can count on!
Retirement planning is all about managing your money so you can make the most of your retirement years. This requires careful consideration of your retirement goals and the course of action necessary to achieve those goals. A good retirement plan will balance your needs, desires, and goals with the reality of your finances. It can help you to set realistic goals for retirement and understand how much you need to save for those goals, thus guiding your investment and other choices accordingly. A retirement plan is a highly personalized exercise which requires a holistic approach, considering not only the financial aspects but also non-financial aspects of your life, such as when to stop working, your lifestyle choices, what you plan to do and where you plan to live in retirement. Needless to say, the earlier you start, the better and easier it can be to achieve your goals.
We can help. We work closely with you and your key advisors to develop a retirement plan tailored to you. We guide you through identifying sources of income, estimating expenses, implementing a savings program, and managing assets and risk, ultimately arriving at an estimation of your future cash flows to determine if your retirement income goals will be achieved. We help you to set specific income or asset targets and identify the steps needed to achieve them. We will walk you through the accumulation-of-assets phase to the distribution-of-assets phase, where your savings are converted to income. Our comprehensive analysis factors in key considerations such as your home, estate and succession plan, personal health and insurance considerations, and RRSPs, RRIFs, pensions and other savings plans. Our in-depth tax experience ensures you are taking advantage of opportunities to minimize income and estate taxes while ensuring a smooth retirement.
We recommend legal experts and financial planners and work with these advisors as a team to execute a plan to control and distribute assets, saving taxes and costs.
If you choose to include Logan Katz in your estate planning, you can be assured of optimum results, including:
- A will that can save taxes on inheritance income every year.
- Having an airtight power of attorney and living will.
- Reducing costs and delays for probate and estate windup.
- Avoiding family conflicts and family law claims.
- Organizing your important papers and VIP contact lists.
- An effective estate plan will go a long way towards ensuring a smooth transition of your assets to your beneficiaries, while minimizing taxes and costs.
The uncertainty around your retirement security can be a stressful reality. We help you build a retirement plan that gives you the understanding and peace of mind you need to continue moving forward.
Logan Katz professionals appreciate the many reasons our clients engage us to deliver back-office support and interim controllership. We tailor and carry out our services to meet your particular operational requirements and help you succeed. In return for your trust in us, you gain cost and time efficiencies – as well as peace of mind from knowing your business and operational interests are in reliable hands.
Here is a sample of the services we deliver and manage:
Bookkeeping
- Set-up of/transition to accounting software
- Regular monthly bookkeeping on accounting software, including:
- Entry of vendor invoices, accounts payable tracking, and preparation of cheques for payment
- Entry of customer invoices, accounts receivable tracking and cash receipts
- Performance of monthly bank reconciliations
- Posting and reconciliation of credit cards
- Posting and reconciliation of expense reports
- Amortization of capital assetsRegular monthly bookkeeping on accounting software, including:
- Processing of payroll and payments
- Preparation and filing of all required monthly and annual payroll documents to the Canada Revenue Agency
- Filing of T4 summaries and slips and preparation of Records of Employment
- Computation, preparation, and filing of sales taxes, and, if applicable, other commodity taxes
- Provision of monthly financial statements (e.g. income statement, balance sheet, and other reports) with commentary on variances and other significant matters
- Preparation of a monthly/quarterly board reporting package
- Discussion and setup of proper reporting format
- Regular update meetings (monthly/biweekly) on issues, challenges and successes
- Preparation of budgets and cash flow forecasts/projections
- Support in preparing working papers required for year-end audit or review engagement
Your business is your baby – your life’s work. Just the thought of giving it up can be both depressing and daunting at the same time. You are not alone. Statistics show that at least half of business owners do not have, and do not even wish to think about, a succession plan. But with only 30% of family businesses surviving into the second generation, a succession plan is worthy of your consideration. A well thought-out succession plan can not only help your business survive after you, it can help add value to your business, enhance its competitiveness, and provide stability through disruption, conflict or uncertain times. A good plan will help maximize your personal wealth upon retirement and bring you and your family peace of mind. Most business owners wait until it is too late to think about a succession plan. Succession planning is ideally advised to begin a minimum of 10 years in advance of a desired transition. If you are reading this, you have already taken the most important first step – being aware of the need for a succession plan.
We can help you from here. We work with you and in conjunction with your key advisors in developing a succession plan that is right for you - one that fits your goals and considers the complexities and sensitivities of your business, personal, and family situation. We provide you with an understanding of the tax, financial, legal, and regulatory impacts of various options, while assessing the related risks and rewards to ensure your succession plan maximizes value while meeting your goals. Our in-depth tax experience ensures you are taking advantage of opportunities to minimize income and estate taxes while ensuring a smooth transition. We provide with you a review of your options and advise on the path that is right for you. Over the past quarter century, we have helped business owners through intergenerational family transfers of business, employee buy-outs, and sales to outside buyers..
Your business does not have to end with you, and you do not have to end with your business. Building a legacy for future generations through a solid succession plan can help ensure your life’s work doesn’t end with you.
As a business owner, you are constantly working both in and on your business - assessing its value, evaluating its options, and charting its strategic direction. Whether your business is poised for expansion through a merger or acquisition or poised for divestiture through a sale, we can help you evaluate the risks and rewards of a potential purchase or sale. Backed by 25 years of experience and connections in Ottawa, Toronto and abroad, our tailored service approach includes a financial, tax, and general business perspective coupled with an understanding of you and your goals. We review historical financials statements and information and future oriented forecasts and budgets and conduct due diligence procedures to help you understand and assess the financial health and fit for you. We work with your legal and other key advisors to ensure your interests are holistically looked after. We help you to navigate through the purchase or sale process so as to avoid unpleasant surprises, while maximizing value and minimizing tax.
The purchase or sale of a business can be a complex and difficult process. We empower you with the knowledge, guidance and support you need to make the right decision for you.
Business plans can take a variety of forms – from a few scribbles on a paper napkin to robust and responsive financial models. Whatever the form, a solid business plan is irrefutably a key contributor to business success.
The benefits of a comprehensive business plan go far beyond being a tool to obtain financing: A business plan can help you manage and direct your business to greater success. Putting pen to paper in the form of a business plan can provide a reality check on your business, revealing interesting opportunities, areas for improvement or discontinuance, and cash flow challenges, and ultimately serving as a base for effective operational decision making. An effective business plan will also help you maintain a strategic focus, allowing you to set priorities, better manage change and strengthen your business. Whether it be for growth, expansion, cost control, or restructuring, a business plan can be an effective tool to develop accountability, align your team and provide them all with clear direction.
Our experience with business owners and financial information as well as our own internally developed planning tools makes us well poised to assist you with your strategic business planning. We can help you build a business plan, prepare cash flow forecasts and budgets, project revenues and expenses, conduct break-even and sensitivity analyses, and assess commercial viability and profitability of your business.
The road from here to your vision is paved with a solid business plan. We walk you down that path and help you build that plan.
Embarking on a business venture together is an exciting time for shareholders/partners. But when things go wrong, the situation can quickly turn from exciting to exasperating to litigious.
Putting in place a sound shareholders/partnership agreement at inception is one of the best pieces of advice you will receive. A clear, concise and comprehensive shareholders/partnership agreement can prove invaluable in navigating past or through any future disputes. We work closely with your lawyers and other key advisors to ensure you have a shareholders/partnership agreement which meets all stakeholder goals, in a fair and equitable manner. When disagreements arise, we help you work through the shareholders/partnership agreement to arrive at a quick and optimal resolution.
When disagreements are unworkable or outside the scope of the shareholders agreement, we act as an impartial intermediary in shareholders/partnership disputes, helping stakeholders to arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution. Our conflict resolution expertise is complemented by our understanding of your business and financial information, thus offering an objective perspective with which we can facilitate greater clarity and insight into workable solutions for all stakeholders. We help you understand the legal, tax, and financial implications of various resolution scenarios, while factoring in the personal and business needs, contributions, and goals of each stakeholder. Often, using our services as mediator can avoid unnecessary, costly and lengthy litigation, as well as significant personal and emotional toil.
When disputes require the intervention of the courts, we can be tasked as court-appointed receiver or inspector, conducting mandated tasks such as taking possession of, managing, and realizing on the disputed assets, carrying on business pending resolution, gathering information, examining and analyzing financial records, and preparation of reports and analyses.
A stakeholder dispute does not have to mean an end to your business relationship or your business. We help you navigate the tricky, troubled waters of stakeholder disputes and ensure we help bring everyone safely to shore.
CLIENT INSPIRED.
INDUSTRIES
You are a people pleaser.
Providing the ultimate customer experience has always been the source of your passion. You are responsible for a myriad of details to ensure a quality product and premium service – from hiring the smiles that greet your customers to testing the food that enters their palette to inspecting the flowers that surround them – all at an affordable price to your customer and a profitable return to you.
Client satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do too. We have extensive experience with the hospitality, food service, and entertainment industry, including franchises across Ottawa and Toronto. We understand that you are flooded with operational details and have limited time to delve into financial details, so we provide you with seamless financial reporting and tax planning at a reasonable cost to you. We can help you establish a proper corporate structure and shareholder agreements, provide optimized tax planning advice including a remuneration plan that suits your needs, and help you compile and understand your financials to better manage your business, while ensuring you are always compliant with your personal, corporate, payroll and commodity tax filing obligations.
You are the people we aim to please.
You went pro.
You invested time and money into your profession and your achievements have led you to your current success; a thriving practice built on your hard work and perseverance. Your professional designation sets you apart and affords you the respect of your peers and your community. Your clients turn to you to take care of their needs.
We went pro too. As professionals ourselves, we understand first hand the sacrifices you’ve made to get here and the challenges you face to go further. Professionals from all disciplines – including health, dental, legal, engineering, architectural – turn to us to take care of their financial and tax needs. We’re here as your partner in building your practice and ensure you maximize your potential while minimizing your taxes. We provide you with a breadth of service aimed at complementing your professional expertise – bookkeeping, incorporation, corporate structures, remuneration planning, financial statements, as well as income, payroll and commodity tax filings.
Leave your profession to the professionals!
You appreciate the value of property.
You understood from early on that the path to true financial success was through the power of leveraging. So you invested your hard-earned funds into real estate and never looked back. Now, as you manage the day-to-day challenges of securing and managing your real estate base, you look to advisors to ensure you are leveraging your tax positions too.
We appreciate the value of your time. In serving the real estate sector for over two decades, we understand the ever-evolving complexities and rules inherent in the real estate business – both in Ottawa and Toronto. We can guide you through these complex transactions, ensure you take advantage of corporate structures and tax mechanisms available to you, and always ensure you are on-side with respect to your tax compliance reporting obligations.
Let us show you the value of our appreciation.
You’ve built a successful business out of your individual expertise.
In order to leverage your expertise, you incorporated your skill set and now enjoy the freedom of setting your own pace and being your own boss. Having pivoted your individual expertise into a successful business, you now look to professionals that understand you and provide you with the financial and tax expertise you require.
Logan Katz knows independent contractors; whether you are in Ottawa or Toronto. We can help you understand the risks and rewards of the corporate tax environment, including the risks particular to the independent contractor. We can advise you in the areas of corporate structures, remuneration and payroll, commodity tax options, reporting obligations, and tax planning opportunities. As your income stream offers you flexibility but also fluctuation, you need a solid financial plan and tax planning advice to help you navigate and respond appropriately, while ensuring you are compliant and onside with the tax rules with filing deadlines.
We’ll keep you informed on what you need to know.
You’re a builder.
Breaking things down and building things up is what you do. But with the business of building comes a myriad of considerations and codes that you need to be aware of. You tackle your challenges head on – finding and retaining a skilled labour force of tradespeople, controlling your costs, expanding your market, and mitigating your risks, of which there are many in your field.
Logan Katz has extensive expertise in the construction field. We can build you a financial plan and break it down into understandable chunks of information that you can use to run your business more effectively and efficiently. We will help you to prepare and understand your financial information, including your costs components and margins, assist with financial forecasts and budgeting as well as help you to evaluate your financial risks, so as to enable you to better manage your business. We provide comprehensive tax planning, and can advise on a number of issues specific to your industry, including revenue recognition, treatment of holdbacks and equipment, as well as your reporting obligations in the areas of payroll, commodity tax, WSIB, and income tax.
Let’s build a relationship together.
You make an impact.
Your passion makes the world a better place and your reputation affords you the trust of the public to do so. Your responsibility for the use of public funds holds you to a higher standard than others. You must demonstrate good governance and always be clear, transparent, and accountable. You require assurance on your financials for your funders and members. In addition, you face many challenges uniquely different than those encountered by traditional businesses, including creating and managing successful membership and donor base, government contribution agreements, developing strong and active board members, and increasing benefits.
We understand. We value the not-for-profit space and the trust you place in us. As a CPA, we are trained in providing assurance – reasonable or limited – on your financial information. Because Logan Katz is actively involved in “volunteerism” in our community, we have an insider’s understanding of issues that the NPOs faces, as well as an understanding obtained by helping our not-for-profit clients as they face these issues. We serve a wide range of not-for-profit organizations, including associations, unions, charities, foundations, pension plans, schools, and festivals. We provide audit, review, internal controls assessments, government compliance or special reports, as well as bookkeeping and payroll services, commodity tax advice, and Canada Revenue Agency filings such as the T3010 Registered Charity Information Return and T1044 Non-Profit Information Return.
Let us help you make an impact.
Do you have an idea brewing? Are you dying to start a business? Do you feel the entrepreneurial spirit in your gut? Do you feel that you can offer something unique to the marketplace? Have you been sitting on your idea for way too long and it just won’t hatch? Well, come on over to the Hatchery and let’s crack this egg together!
The Hatchery is designed to nurture, guide, and support the growth of your little idea into a booming business! The Hatchery will provide you with the tools and resources you need to make your idea a business reality, and ultimately, a business success story. With our expert guidance, we can help you kick start your idea and get your new venture up and running. We will walk beside you through the stages of your business development cycle and help you gain the confidence you need to prosper in the business world. And as your business grows, we will celebrate your successes with you and guide you through the obstacles. We will be there with you through all your ‘firsts’ – your first customer, your first export, your first employee! Like a good grandparent, we will share our wisdom with you without interfering in your vision. At the Hatchery, you will be provided with your very own resource nest in which to develop and grow your idea. Your nest will contain:
» Up to one hour free consultation with a Logan Katz partner or manager
» Up to two hours free bookkeeping training
» $500 off our first year statutory reporting package
» Up to five hours free usage of our state of the art meeting rooms,
with complimentary coffee and tea (our office has plenty of free parking and is conveniently located near the airport and surrounded by great restaurants and shopping).
» Up to $50 catering for your meetings
» Access to our network of like-minded professional advisors
» Access to speaking engagements by local entrepreneurs
» Networking access to our business community
Finally, one of our unique features is our cosmopolitan spirit. Our firm may be based in Ottawa and Toronto, but our wings span all over the world. Now that technology has enabled access to foreign markets, to all enterprises, regardless of size, you and your professional advisors should be globally connected as well. We are a member of AGN International — a worldwide association of separate and independent accounting and consulting firms. This allows us to tap into the expertise and knowledge of a network of about 8,800 professional accountants in 195 independent firms operating in 89 countries – which in turn allows you to have this network work for you! We are also proud to boast that we have qualified staff who can serve you in six languages: English, French, Hindi, Mandarin, Italian, and Spanish.
WHY THE HATCHERY?
Logan Katz is committed to keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well in the nation’s capital and beyond. To this end, we partner with several local organizations in a number of entrepreneurial initiatives. The Hatchery is our latest venture in the entrepreneurial space!
Most importantly, we are visionaries. We come from small beginnings too. So when
we see you, we do not just see a person with an idea, we see what your idea can become given the right encouragement, guidance, and tools! We see your potential – we think big! We see your success and we want to be right there beside you as your trusted business advisor between now and when you achieve it!
WHO GETS ADMITTED INTO THE HATCHERY?
The criteria to qualify is quite simple: you must be a new business entrepreneur. Contact us to set up an informal interview and let’s see if we can do business together!
HIGH TECH
Helping Technology Firms Soar. In Ottawa, small-to-mid-sized businesses are fueling the tech resurgence in an unprecedented way. In Toronto, technology jobs are said to surpass Silicon Valley in the near future.
Software development. Digital media. Telecommunications. Optics and photonics. Security. There is no limit to the range of products and services today’s technology industry is developing and marketing, and to what it can contribute to local, national and international economies.
Logan Katz is more than an accounting firm with an interest in the technology industry. We are as much a part of the industry as an accounting firm can be.
With David Logan, Trevor Kennedy and Kyle Royer as leads, our Technology Entrepreneurship Group (‘TEG’) is equipped with the expertise and capacity to bring together the elements to ensure technology business owners and stakeholders succeed. Below are examples of activities that demonstrate our commitment to those we serve:
» Recognizing that successful business owners have a wealth of relevant information and insights, we bring in subject matter experts every month to discuss issues affecting technology firms.
» Having worked with clients at all stages of their businesses – from pre-revenue, revenue growth after completion of technology, to their sale to private or public companies – we know the lifecycle of businesses within the technology industry.
» Doing business outside Canada is typical within the technology industry. As a member of AGN International, Logan Katz uses this network of accounting and consulting firms to serve clients with global business dealings.
Logan Katz clients will attest to the quality of our work, and so too will the people we assist through these business-support programs:
Invest Ottawa – As part of a team of accounting, law and other professional firms selected to ensure Ottawa is the best place to start and grow a business, we provide seminars, mentorship and other professional guidance for businesses at all stages. We provide advice to both the Accelerator and Pre-Accelerator pograms, as well as work with the Global Expansion team to help international businesses land in Ottawa.
The DMZ, Ryerson University– Logan Katz is proud to be a Professional-in-Residence at the DMZ, a world leading accelerator for tech startups in Canada.
Startup Garage, University of Ottawa – With the support of the Ontario Centres of Excellence, this program offers students work experience and opportunities to learn the fundamentals from professional mentors. Logan Katz assists entrepreneurs with their crucial first steps toward future success.
In addition to participating in technology-specific programs, we also offer and maintain our own distinct program, The Hatchery. Drawing on our skills and Canadian and international networks, we advise and encourage clients, and give them resources to turn their ideas into flourishing businesses.
Wherever you are and whatever stage your technology business is at – just starting out or expanding – you can be sure TEG will provide the support you are looking for, with services including:
»Full-scope accounting and hands-on assistance for clients wanting to set up their businesses anywhere in Canada.
»Financial statements, tax planning and compliance.
» Incentives such as, Scientific Research and Experimental Development, Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credits and the Industrial Research Assistance Program – better known within the industry by their acronyms – SR&ED, OIDMTC and IRAP, respectively.
» Guidance on exporting and expanding your business abroad, vetted by our international network.
» Contacts with patent agents and lawyers in areas like intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions.
Included with all our offerings is peace of mind – so you can focus and act with confidence on your business goals.
Let’s talk tech.