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Gondaliya CPA

Corporate Tax Filing Experts

Tax Accountant for Security Companies in Ontario and Across Canada

You sell one solution on one agreement, and inside it sit four different things: equipment supplied and installed, a monitoring subscription, manned hours, and sometimes a risk assessment. One price on the invoice does not make one supply in law. ETA section 138 deems an element supplied with another for a single consideration, and reasonably regarded as incidental to it, to form part of that other supply, and ETA section 178 deems a reimbursed expense part of your own consideration except to the extent it was incurred as agent — so the answer is read off your agreement element by element, and we never assume it either way. Then each element is accounted for differently: equipment for resale is inventory under ITA section 10, equipment you install and still own is your own Class 8 asset, monitoring billed ahead of the work is income under ITA paragraph 12(1)(a) reserved out under paragraph 20(1)(m), and hours worked but not yet invoiced are income now. We separate all four, carry deferred monitoring revenue as the liability it is, and show the contract book the way a buyer and a lender read it — with AFFORDABLE flat fees.

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AFFORDABLE Security Company Tax Accountant

An integrated security company sells a solution, and a solution is a bundle. The same agreement can supply hardware, install it, monitor it, put people on site and price a risk assessment, and the customer frequently signs for all of it at one figure. That single figure is where the accounting goes wrong, because a single consideration does not settle how anything is taxed. ETA section 138 and ETA section 178 are the provisions that decide whether a bundled agreement is one supply or several and whether a recharged cost is your own supply or an agency recovery, and both of them are applied to the words of your contract rather than to the layout of your invoice. We read the agreement and document the analysis element by element, and we assert nothing in either direction before that work is done. At Gondaliya CPA, we specialize in bundled contract analysis, deferred revenue and capital pools for security companies, providing AFFORDABLE flat-fee support that keeps you CRA-compliant and stops you paying more tax than you owe.

The commercial half of the problem is simpler and costs just as much: a company that reports equipment, installation, monitoring and manned hours on one revenue line cannot tell which element makes money. One of them is a thin-margin sale that wins the account, one is a recurring stream that funds the business for a decade, one is labour-dominant, and one is advisory. As a security companies accountant, we split them in the ledger, cost each one against what it actually earned, and give you a monthly number per element instead of a single annual total that explains nothing.

Let us handle the numbers so you can focus on winning and keeping accounts.

Gondaliya CPA team - accounting and tax services for security companies

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Accounting That Understands How a Security Company Actually Works

Four elements on one agreement means four different answers in the accounts, and no two of them land in the same period. Equipment behaves one way when you sell it and another way entirely when you install it and keep owning it. Monitoring is money in the bank for work you still owe. Hours are earned before anybody invoices them. At Gondaliya CPA, we understand that reality and provide practical, industry-focused solutions across Ontario.

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Equipment Sold, or Equipment You Still Own

Stock held for resale is inventory under ITA section 10. Equipment you install and continue to own is your own Class 8 asset at 20%, depreciating on someone else’s wall while it earns.

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Monitoring Billed Ahead of the Work

An annual or multi-year term collected up front is income under ITA paragraph 12(1)(a) and reserved out under paragraph 20(1)(m) for the months not yet rendered. It is a liability, not profit.

⏳

Hours Earned Before They Are Invoiced

Manned hours are earned as worked, so hours performed but not yet billed at period end are income, with the wages accrued against them sitting on the other side as a liability.

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The Contract Book Is What a Buyer Buys

Recurring monitoring agreements are the valuation driver. An acquired book sits in Class 14.1 at 5%, or Class 14 on a fixed legal term, and attrition is the number a lender tests.

Stay Compliant and Minimize Your Security Company Tax

For a security company, staying onside with CRA and the provincial authorities and paying the least legal tax are the same job. We keep every filing on schedule while claiming every equipment, vehicle, premises and software dollar the T2 allows, so nothing is missed and nothing invites a reassessment.

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Authorities, Licensing and Association Dues

Where your company supplies manned hours, guards and the business are licensed in Ontario under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act, 2005, administered by the Ministry of the Solicitor General. We name the Act and the ministry, treat licensing, renewal and training cost as the real recurring deductible expense it is, and confirm every requirement with the ministry rather than asserting one. WSIB applies from the first hire. Entitlements under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 are real and are employment counsel’s to quantify. PIPEDA reaches personal information and recorded material you hold. CANASA and ASIS International dues belong in the ledger.

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CRA Obligations for Security Companies

Staying compliant means far more than one return a year. We manage GST34 returns at 13% with the bundled agreement analysed against ETA section 138 and recharges against ETA section 178 before anything is coded, credits and escalator adjustments run through ETA section 232 credit notes, monitoring reserved under ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) for months not yet rendered, equipment for resale valued as inventory under ITA section 10, company-owned equipment on customer sites carried in Class 8, monitoring workstations in Class 50 rather than Class 8, subcontracted hours tested against Form RC4110 with T4A slips filed, and source deductions reconciled to the PD7A.

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Year-End Deliverables for Security Companies

At year-end, a security corporation needs a trial balance and financial statements that show recurring monitoring revenue separately from equipment, installation and manned-hour revenue, state deferred monitoring revenue as a liability rather than burying it in sales, carry accrued wages and unbilled hours, show the contract book apart from the equipment, and split the Class 8, Class 10, Class 50, Class 12, Class 13 and Class 14.1 pools, plus a T2 with GIFI that ties to your HST returns. A lender reads the deferred revenue line before the bank balance. Our team prepares every deliverable on time.

Accounting & Tax Experts for Security Companies

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Why Choose Our Accounting Services for Security Companies?

1
🎯

Tax Planning — Elements & Pools

We separate the four elements of your contracts, split Class 50 monitoring workstations from Class 8 field equipment, and protect the $500,000 Small Business Deduction under ITA section 125.

2
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Consulting — Margin by Element

Our bookkeeping costs equipment, installation, monitoring and manned hours separately against what each earned, so you can see which part of a bundled account is actually carrying it.

3
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CRA Representation — Bundles & Payroll

When CRA questions a bundled agreement, a deferred revenue position or the subcontract line, we prepare the response and pursue relief on Form RC4288 where a prior error caused the penalties.

4
🏢

Bookkeeping — Book Value & Sale

We track the contract book and its attrition, produce the statements your lender reads, and model the sale of your recurring revenue base years before you go to market.

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Includes personal T1 filing for you and your family
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Weekend and evening support until 9 PM
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Just a call away when you need us

Security Company Tax and Accounting Services in Ontario

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Corporate Tax Filing (T2) for Security Companies

Professional T2 preparation with the four contract elements on separate lines, monitoring reserved for months not yet rendered, and company-owned equipment carried in Class 8.

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Bookkeeping & Accounting for Security Companies

Books that split equipment, installation, monitoring and manned hours instead of compressing a bundled agreement into one revenue account nobody can read.

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Payroll Services for Security Companies

Wages and subcontract payments handled properly, with PD7A remittances by the 15th, T4 and T4A slips filed on time and classification tested against Form RC4110.

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GST/HST Filing for Security Companies

AFFORDABLE HST filing with the bundled agreement read against ETA section 138 and recharges against ETA section 178 before a single line is coded.

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Tax Planning for Security Companies

Smart tax planning on equipment and vehicle timing across Class 8, Class 10 and Class 50, the Small Business Deduction, and the eventual sale of your contract book.

⏳

Corporate Catch-Up Filing for Security Companies

File overdue T2 and HST years, rebuild the deferred revenue and capital pools you never had, and get back into CRA compliance with accurate catch-up support.

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CRA Audit Resolution for Security Companies

Expert support on bundled supply, deferred revenue and worker classification audits, handled with confidence from the very first CRA letter.

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CPA Financial Statements (Notice to Reader) for Security Companies

CPA-compiled statements lenders accept, showing recurring monitoring revenue, deferred revenue as a liability and the contract book apart from equipment.

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Incorporation Services for Security Companies

Full incorporation including NUANS, articles, share structure, and the section 85 rollover of your contract book, equipment and vehicles into the company.

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Catch-Up Bookkeeping Services for Security Companies

Months or years of bundled invoices, supplier bills, subcontract hours and equipment purchases reconstructed and reconciled, so your revenue figure is finally accurate.

🌐

US Corporation & LLC Tax Filing for Security Companies

Cross-border filing where monitored premises, customers, owners or shareholders sit outside Canada, covering withholding, NR4 reporting and T1135 obligations.

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Voluntary Disclosure Program for Security Companies

Come forward on unfiled T4A slips, monitoring recognised too early or unremitted source deductions before CRA calls, cancelling penalties through a Voluntary Disclosures Program application.

Accounting & Tax Services Tailored for Security Companies

Real, practitioner-level CPA expertise for integrated security companies, monitoring providers, blended contract operators and security consultancies across Ontario — built for a business that sells four different things on one agreement.

  • We prepare your T2 with GIFI on Schedule 100 and Schedule 125, separating equipment sales, installation revenue, recurring monitoring, manned hours and consulting fees onto their own lines so CRA’s matching reads the return the way your business actually works.
  • We reserve monitoring revenue under ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) for the months of a term not yet rendered, so an annual or three-year agreement collected in advance is taxed across the period it covers rather than entirely in the month you invoiced it.
  • We claim capital cost allowance on Schedule 8 with field equipment in Class 8 at 20%, monitoring-centre workstations and servers in Class 50 at 55%, application software in Class 12 at 100%, and service and patrol vehicles in Class 10.
  • We value equipment held for resale as inventory under ITA section 10, and we carry equipment you installed but still own as your own capital asset rather than writing it off as materials the month the technician left the site.
  • We bring hours worked but not yet invoiced at your year-end into income and accrue the wages against them, because a period that ends mid-cycle leaves real revenue and a real liability sitting outside the billing system.
  • We build a chart of accounts with equipment, installation, monitoring, manned hours and consulting as separate revenue streams, because a bundled agreement posted to one sales account hides which element earns and which one you are subsidising.
  • We maintain a deferred revenue schedule contract by contract, so cash collected against months of monitoring you still owe sits on the balance sheet as the obligation it is instead of inflating a single profitable-looking month.
  • We keep an asset register for equipment installed at customer premises that your company continues to own, tied to the Class 8 pool, so additions, cancellations and disposals are recorded as they happen rather than reconstructed years later.
  • We track annual escalators, service-level credits and early-termination charges against each agreement, so a price increase that was contracted for is actually billed and a credit allowed to a customer is recorded rather than lost in a reconciliation.
  • We capture supplier, equipment, subcontract and vehicle invoices and reconcile monthly, keeping the six years of records ITA section 230 requires and making sure no recoverable input tax credit is quietly left behind on a filed return.
  • We remit source deductions on the PD7A by the 15th of the following month, because CRA’s late-remittance penalty on source deductions reaches 10% on a graduated basis and a labour-heavy contract book makes one missed cycle a material number.
  • We file your T4 slips and T4 Summary by the last day of February and reconcile them to the remittances actually made, so the two sets of numbers agree before CRA’s own matching puts the question to you first.
  • We test subcontracted hours against the Form RC4110 factors and file T4A slips on the people who are genuinely contractors, because a large subcontract line with no analysis behind it is the first thing a payroll auditor asks about.
  • We register you with WSIB from the first hire and monitor Ontario payroll against the $1,000,000 Employer Health Tax exemption, so a growing wage bill does not quietly cross a threshold nobody was watching that year.
  • We keep directors out of personal exposure under ITA section 227.1 and ETA section 323, with the two-year window in ITA subsection 227.1(4) in view, by making remittance a monthly control rather than something settled at year-end.
  • We read your bundled agreement against ETA section 138, which deems an element supplied with another for a single consideration and reasonably regarded as incidental to it to form part of that other supply, and we reach no conclusion before reading it.
  • We apply ETA section 178 to recharged costs and subcontracted services, which deems a reimbursement part of the consideration for your own supply except to the extent the expense was incurred as agent, and we document the analysis rather than assuming either answer.
  • Under ETA subsection 168(1) tax is payable on the earlier of the day consideration is paid and the day it becomes due, so a multi-year term billed up front lands in that filing period while the revenue is earned across the term.
  • We run escalator adjustments, service-level credits and allowances through ETA section 232 credit notes rather than netting them against sales, so a credit granted two filing periods after the original invoice corrects the right return instead of understating an earlier one.
  • We name ETA section 182 on a forfeited deposit where an agreement is breached and ETA section 181.2 on a gift-certificate-style prepayment as live provisions to review against your actual terms, and we assert that neither applies to anything until the terms are read.
  • We time equipment, workstation and vehicle purchases against your fiscal year-end, weighing the 55% Class 50 rate on monitoring-centre computers against the 20% Class 8 rate on field equipment, so the deduction lands in the year it is worth most.
  • We set the salary-versus-dividend mix for the owner, paying enough T4 salary to build RRSP room while the balance flows as dividends, so combined tax stays near the 12.2% Ontario small-business rate rather than 53.53% personally.
  • We keep active income under the $500,000 Small Business Deduction limit using ITA section 125, watch the associated-corporation rules where the same owner runs a separate installation or consulting company, and raise ITA subsection 125(7) as a question rather than an answer.
  • We plan the structure of new agreements with you before they are signed, so the elements of a bundle are described and priced in a way that can actually be read, evidenced and accounted for afterwards without guesswork.
  • We plan at least two years ahead so your shares qualify for the $1.25M Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption under ITA 110.6, purifying retained cash that would otherwise fail the active-business asset test when a buyer finally arrives.
  • We reconstruct equipment, installation, monitoring and manned-hour revenue from agreements, invoices, subcontract records and bank deposits across your unfiled years, rebuilding the six years of records ITA section 230 requires from whatever evidence still exists.
  • Late filing costs 5% of the balance owing plus 1% per month up to twelve months, so we file your oldest unfiled T2 first to stop the penalty compounding and to limit the arrears interest CRA charges on top of it.
  • We rebuild the deferred revenue position year by year, because a catch-up filing that recognised every annual monitoring invoice when it was raised overstates income in the billing year and understates it in each year the service was actually delivered.
  • We rebuild the capital pools across the missing years, moving monitoring workstations and servers out of Class 8 into Class 50 and software into Class 12, and bringing company-owned equipment on customer sites onto Schedule 8 where it belonged.
  • We file a Voluntary Disclosures Program application on Form RC199 before CRA contacts you, because a disclosure accepted under the general program cancels penalties in full and gives roughly 50% interest relief on the older years.
  • When CRA questions how a bundled agreement was treated, we produce the agreement, the element-by-element analysis and the ETA section 138 and ETA section 178 reasoning on file, because a coded invoice with nothing behind it is what invites the reassessment.
  • When CRA tests your reported sales against bank deposits, we show the deferred revenue reconciliation and the ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) reserve, because a prepaid multi-year term in the account is not the same thing as income already earned.
  • When CRA challenges the subcontract line, we produce the agreements, the invoices and the Form RC4110 analysis for each engagement, because a labour-heavy business with an unexplained subcontract total is where this kind of audit usually begins.
  • When CRA opens a payroll review, we reconcile the PD7A remittances to the T4 slips and the wage accounts, so a single timing difference does not turn into an assessment that reaches the directors personally under ITA section 227.1.
  • We file the Notice of Objection within 90 days of a reassessment and pursue taxpayer relief on Form RC4288, cancelling penalties and interest that can top $15,000 where a prior accountant’s error caused them, protecting your Tax Court rights.
  • We prepare the CSRS 4200 compilation engagement financial statements a lender requires across two fiscal years for an operating line against receivables, for equipment and vehicle finance, or for the acquisition of a book of monitoring accounts.
  • Your compiled statement of operations shows recurring monitoring revenue separately from equipment, installation and manned-hour revenue, because a lender advancing against recurring revenue cannot do that from a single sales figure covering four different things.
  • Your compiled statement of financial position states deferred monitoring revenue as the liability it is, so cash banked against a term only part delivered is not read as equity you already own free and clear.
  • We present the contract book and its attrition apart from the equipment and the fleet, because a buyer and a lender value a stream of recurring agreements on completely different evidence from panels, cameras and vans.
  • We deliver the compiled statements within 30 days of receiving your records and the year’s T2 figures, because a financing decision or a letter of intent does not wait for a slow accountant to catch up.
  • We incorporate your security business under the Ontario Business Corporations Act, giving you limited liability on the obligations your agreements create and roughly the 12.2% Ontario small-business rate on active income against 53.53% personally.
  • We complete the section 85 rollover on Form T2057, transferring your existing contract book, installed equipment, vehicles and goodwill into the corporation at elected amounts, deferring the capital gain a straight sale of those assets would otherwise trigger.
  • We set the opening Class 8, Class 10, Class 50, Class 12 and Class 14.1 schedules from the rollover, so the corporation starts with an asset base that is documented rather than rebuilt from memory several years later.
  • We open the corporation’s CRA Business Number, GST/HST and payroll accounts and register for WSIB within the first 30 days, so the revenue and the wages land in the entity that is actually required to report them.
  • We set the chart of accounts with the four revenue elements, deferred revenue and the installed equipment register built in from the first agreement, so the records accumulate correctly from day one instead of being reconstructed under pressure.
  • We rebuild months or years of neglected books from customer agreements, bundled invoices, supplier bills, subcontract records and bank statements, so a company that grew through three contract wins without bookkeeping finally gets a ledger that ties.
  • We unpick bundled invoices into their elements across the whole backlog, which is the single correction that changes both the revenue figure and the margin on every account you thought you understood before we started.
  • We rebuild the equipment position from purchase invoices, separating stock still held for resale from equipment installed at customer sites that the company continues to own, and splitting the result across Class 8, Class 50 and Class 12.
  • We recover the input tax credits buried in unentered equipment, subcontract, vehicle and premises invoices, because two years of unposted purchases in an equipment-heavy business can easily hide five figures of recoverable tax.
  • We reconstruct deferred monitoring revenue and unbilled manned hours at each year-end across the caught-up months, so an accurate T2 can be filed without guessing how much of the banked cash was service still owed.
  • Where monitored premises, customers or a monitoring centre sit outside Ontario or outside Canada, we review the place of supply rules against what was actually supplied and to whom, rather than treating a billing address as the whole answer.
  • Where a non-resident owns shares in your company, we handle the Part XIII withholding on dividends paid out of Canada and the NR4 reporting that follows, so nothing is missed at 25% or at the applicable treaty rate.
  • Where a subcontractor is a non-resident performing services in Canada, we address Regulation 105 withholding and the T4A-NR reporting that follows, instead of paying the invoice as though the border made no difference to the obligation.
  • We file Form T1135 where the owners’ foreign property costs more than $100,000, avoiding a penalty regime CRA applies whether or not any tax was actually owing on the holding in the year in question.
  • Where a US citizen is a shareholder of the company, we coordinate the Canadian and US filings, because their reporting obligations reach into a Canadian corporation in ways most owner families discover far too late to plan around.
  • We bring your company forward on subcontracted hours paid for years with no T4A slips filed, because the per-slip penalties and the worker classification exposure both sit behind that one unexplained line in the accounts.
  • We correct annual and multi-year monitoring taken into income when it was billed rather than as it was earned, which is a cumulative error on a business that sells a three-year term and delivers it one month at a time.
  • We disclose unremitted source deductions before CRA assesses them, because that is the exposure that reaches the directors personally under ITA section 227.1, and a voluntary correction is a far better position than an assessment.
  • We file your submission on Form RC199 with a full reconstruction from agreements, invoices, subcontract records and bank statements, so a company that outgrew its bookkeeping is not left facing an arbitrary CRA assessment it cannot answer.
  • We confirm your disclosure is genuinely voluntary before CRA contacts you — the single condition that makes it valid — and secure the roughly 50% interest relief on the older years, turning a prosecution risk into a managed correction.

Security Company Tax & Contract Check

Six quick questions on your bundled agreements, your deferred monitoring revenue, your installed equipment, your capital pools, your remittances and whether it is time to incorporate. No fee shown.

1. Has each bundled agreement been read against ETA section 138 and ETA section 178 element by element?

2. Do you carry deferred revenue for monitoring months not yet rendered?

3. Is equipment you installed but still own carried as a Class 8 asset?

4. Are monitoring workstations in Class 50 rather than pooled in Class 8?

5. Do your PD7A remittances reconcile to your T4 slips and wage accounts?

6. Is your security business incorporated?

Free CPA Consultation for Security Companies

Case Studies: Security Company Accounting & Tax

Toronto Integrated Security Company — Four Elements, One Revenue Line

The problem: A Toronto company sold blended agreements covering supplied equipment, installation, a monitoring subscription and manned hours, usually at one monthly figure. Everything went to a single sales account. Annual and three-year monitoring terms were taken into income in the month they were invoiced, there was no deferred revenue balance at all, and nobody had ever read the agreements against ETA section 138 or ETA section 178. The owner could not say which element made money, and GST34 reported sales no longer agreed with T2 revenue.

What we did: We rebuilt the chart of accounts with the four elements separated, read each standard agreement element by element and documented the analysis on file, established a per-contract deferred revenue schedule, and applied the ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) reserve to the months not yet rendered.

The result:

  • $418,000 of prepaid monitoring moved into the periods it covered
  • $51,000 of corporate tax deferred to the years the service runs
  • Margin now reported monthly for each of the four elements

Mississauga Security Provider — Equipment Written Off That the Company Still Owned

The problem: A Mississauga provider installed panels, cameras and readers at customer sites and kept title to them under its agreements, then charged a monthly fee. Every piece of that equipment had been expensed as materials in the month it was installed. There was no asset register, nothing on Schedule 8, no capital cost allowance claimed on a base that had been growing for four years, and no disposition recorded when accounts were cancelled or sold on.

What we did: We rebuilt the installed equipment register from purchase invoices and work orders, separated stock still held for resale from equipment the company owned on customer premises, brought the owned equipment into Class 8 at 20%, and recorded the dispositions and recapture on the accounts that had already gone.

The result:

  • $276,000 of installed equipment brought onto Schedule 8
  • Capital cost allowance claimed across four previously open years
  • Disposals and recapture now recorded as accounts cancel

Ottawa Monitoring and Guarding Company — The Contract Book Nobody Could See

The problem: An Ottawa company with a substantial base of multi-year monitoring agreements went to its bank for an acquisition facility and was turned down twice. The statements showed one revenue figure, no deferred revenue, no separation of recurring monitoring from equipment and manned-hour work, and a book of accounts bought two years earlier that had simply been expensed with no schedule behind it. The lender could not see the recurring revenue it was being asked to advance against.

What we did: We restated two fiscal years as a CSRS 4200 compilation, split recurring monitoring from the other elements, stated deferred monitoring revenue as a liability, presented the contract book and its attrition apart from the equipment, and built the Class 14.1 schedule for the acquired accounts with the Class 14 question settled first.

The result:

  • Acquisition facility approved on the third submission
  • Recurring monitoring revenue reported separately across two years
  • Acquired contract book carried on a documented schedule

Our Simple Process

How We Work With Security Companies

Know Exact Fees within 2 Minutes NOW

Our clear, efficient process ensures every step is transparent, building trust and long-term client relationships.

Here’s a simplified process approach:
Step 1

Kickoff (Document Request)

Collect prior T2 returns, your standard customer agreements and any blended contracts, the monitoring contract register, equipment purchase invoices, subcontract agreements, payroll and PD7A records, vehicle and lease documents, and bank statements.

Step 2

First 30 Days (Cleanup & Setup)

Rebuild the chart of accounts with the four revenue elements separated, read each agreement against ETA section 138 and ETA section 178, build the installed equipment register, rebuild the Class 8, 10, 50, 12, 13 and 14.1 pools, and run the RC4110 analysis.

Step 3

Monthly Close

Deferred monitoring revenue updated contract by contract, unbilled hours accrued, margin reported by element, escalators and credits checked, GST34 filed, PD7A remittance reconciled, and the installed equipment register brought current.

Step 4

Quarterly Planning Review

Salary and dividend mix, equipment and vehicle purchases across Class 8, Class 10 and Class 50, the structure of new agreements before they are signed, attrition on the contract book, and cash flow against install cost paid ahead of recurring revenue.

Step 5

Year-End Close & T2 Filing

Trial balance, financial statements with deferred monitoring revenue stated as a liability and the contract book shown separately, inventory valued under ITA section 10, the ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) reserve settled, T2 with GIFI, and CRA preparation.

Get Your Security Company Taxes Done Right Today

Transparent Pricing for Security Companies

Affordable Pricing for Security Companies

Know Exact Fees within 2 Minutes NOW

We believe in clear, upfront pricing so you know exactly what to expect. All fees include HST.

  • Tax Preparation (Corporation) — From $400
  • Tax Return Filing (Corporation) — From $400
  • Tax Compliance Audit — FREE CRA audit support for our clients
  • Tax Strategy — FREE for our clients
  • Accounting Base Plan — From $100 per month
  • Bookkeeping Management — Free for our Accounting clients
  • Financial Reporting — Free for our Accounting clients
  • Business Formation — Flat $35
  • Incorporation Process — Flat $35
  • Entity Setup Assistance — Flat $35
  • Full-Service Payroll — From $125 per month

Payment is by Interac e-Transfer to info@gondaliyacpa.ca only. Security question: Not Applicable, as auto-deposit is enabled.

Meet Your Lead Security Company Accountant

Meet your lead security company accountant. As your security business and corporate tax adviser, you deal with the same two people every year.

Sharad Gondaliya CPA

Sharad Gondaliya, CPA

Principal

Bio

647-212-9559
sharad@gondaliyacpa.ca

Vandana Goel CPA

Vandana Goel, CPA

Accounting Specialist

Bio

647-250-0242
vandana@gondaliyacpa.ca

What Our Clients Say

1300+ five-star reviews from security companies, monitoring providers and contracting business owners across Ontario and Canada.

Serving Security Companies Across Ontario

Our CPA team provides specialized accounting and tax solutions for integrated security companies, monitoring providers and blended contract operators throughout Ontario. We understand why a bundled agreement has to be read against ETA section 138 and ETA section 178 before anything is coded, why equipment you install and still own is a Class 8 asset rather than a material cost, how monitoring billed ahead of the work is earned month by month, and what CRA looks at first when it opens a security company file.

Toronto (ON)

55 Queen St E Ste 1205, Toronto, ON M5C 1R6, Canada

+1 (647) 212-9559

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Mississauga (ON)

2100 Camilla Rd #716, Mississauga, ON L5A 2J8

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Brampton (ON)

4 Starhill Crescent, Brampton, ON L6R 2P9, Canada

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Scarborough (ON)

24 Clementine Square, Scarborough, ON M1G 2V7, Canada

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Vaughan (ON)

19 Cabinet Crescent, Woodbridge, ON L4L 6H9, Canada

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Oshawa (ON)

210 Durham St, Oshawa, ON L1J 5R3, Canada

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Ottawa (ON)

2090 Neepawa Ave a314, Ottawa, ON K2A 3L6, Canada

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Etobicoke (ON)

60 Stevenson Rd #1601, Etobicoke, ON M9V 2B4, Canada

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Hamilton (ON)

70 Starling Dr, Hamilton, ON L9A 0C5, Canada

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Guelph (ON)

1155 Gordon St, Guelph, ON N1L 1S8, Canada

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Windsor (ON)

4387 Guppy Ct, Windsor, ON N9G 2N8, Canada

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North York (ON)

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Security Company Accounting & Tax FAQs

Should I incorporate my security company?
Incorporating gives you limited liability on the obligations a multi-year service agreement creates, plus roughly a 12.2% Ontario combined rate on the first $500,000 of active income under ITA section 125 against a personal rate up to 53.53% when unincorporated. The decision turns on whether you earn more than you withdraw, because that surplus is what a corporation lets you defer. There is a second reason specific to this industry: a contract book, installed equipment and goodwill are assets a corporation can hold, finance and eventually sell in a way a sole proprietor cannot. Where the corporation would be a personal services business under ITA subsection 125(7) the small-business rate is not available, and that is a question of fact we settle on your situation rather than assume. When incorporating makes sense, we handle the section 85 rollover on Form T2057.
Is a bundled security contract one supply or several for HST?
That is decided by the Excise Tax Act applied to your agreement, not by how the invoice is laid out, and we will not tell you the answer before reading the contract. ETA section 138 deems an element supplied together with another element for a single consideration, and reasonably regarded as incidental to that other element, to form part of that other supply. So the question is what your agreement actually says each element is, how it is priced, and how the elements relate to one another. Charging one monthly figure does not by itself make a single supply, and itemising four lines does not by itself make four supplies. We read the agreement element by element, document the analysis in writing, and only then code the billing. We also revisit it when you launch a materially different contract form, because a new blended offering is not automatically the same as the last one.
How should I invoice equipment, monitoring and manned hours together?
Begin from what the agreement says rather than from what the billing system finds convenient, because the invoice is evidence of the arrangement and not a substitute for it. Where elements are genuinely priced and described separately in the contract, an invoice that reflects that is easier to defend and far easier to account for, since each element lands in a different place: goods, a capital asset you retain, service rendered over a term, and hours worked. Where a single price is contracted for, the ETA section 138 analysis has to be done rather than guessed at. On the accounting side, we want the elements separated in the ledger whatever the invoice looks like, because that is the only way to know which part of an account earns and which part is bought business. We set the billing and the coding up together so one supports the other.
When do I recognize monitoring revenue billed annually?
Across the months you actually monitor, not in the month you raised the invoice. An amount received or receivable for services not yet rendered is income under ITA paragraph 12(1)(a), and the portion relating to service not yet rendered at your year-end is reserved out under ITA paragraph 20(1)(m). So an annual fee billed in September against a December year-end leaves most of the term still to run, and that part belongs in next year’s income. The sales tax side moves on a different clock: under ETA subsection 168(1) tax is payable on the earlier of the day the consideration is paid and the day it becomes due, so the tax can fall in one filing period while the revenue is earned across twelve. That mismatch is normal and it is exactly why the two sets of numbers have to be reconciled rather than assumed to agree.
How do I account for a multi-year monitoring agreement with an escalator?
The same reserve logic applies over a longer runway, and the escalator is a separate discipline. Amounts collected for years two and three are service you still owe, so they stay in deferred revenue and come into income as the months pass. The escalator is a contracted price increase, which means it is revenue you are entitled to and the most common thing an under-run billing system silently fails to apply; we check contracted increases against what was actually invoiced each cycle. Service-level credits and allowances run the other way, and they belong in ETA section 232 credit notes rather than being netted off sales. Early-termination charges need their own look: whether such a charge engages ETA section 182 on a breached agreement depends on the terms, and we review that rather than assuming either answer.
Do I charge HST on a disbursement I recharge to a customer?
It depends on whose supply it was, and that is what ETA section 178 addresses. The provision deems a reimbursed expense to be part of the consideration for your own supply, except to the extent that the expense was incurred as agent of the customer. So a cost you incurred on your own account and passed on is treated differently from a cost you incurred as the customer’s agent, and the distinction turns on the arrangement rather than on the words used on the invoice. Subcontracted services recharged to a customer raise the same question. We read the agreement and the surrounding facts, document which analysis applies and why, and keep that file where a reviewer can find it. We do not characterise a recharge in the abstract, and we do not accept a prior treatment simply because it has been applied for years.
What CCA class is equipment I install at a customer site but still own?
If your company retains title, it is your capital asset and generally belongs in Class 8 at 20%, not in cost of sales. This is the single most common and most expensive error we inherit in this industry: panels, cameras, readers and door hardware expensed as materials in the month of installation, so a base of company-owned assets that has been growing for years never appears on Schedule 8 and no capital cost allowance is ever claimed on it. There are two further consequences. The asset keeps earning while it depreciates, which is the economics of the model. And when an account is cancelled or a book of accounts is sold, there is a disposition to record, with recapture where proceeds exceed undepreciated capital cost. Whether title actually passes to the customer is a contract question with a direct tax answer, and it has to be read rather than assumed.
What CCA class is a monitoring centre workstation or server?
Computers, servers and monitoring-centre workstations generally belong in Class 50 at 55%, and application software in Class 12 at 100%. Field equipment such as panels, keypads, sensors, cameras, readers, radios and control-room furniture generally goes to Class 8 at 20%. A leasehold improvement to your premises goes to Class 13 over the term of the lease, an owned building to Class 1, and goodwill or an acquired contract book of indefinite life to Class 14.1 at 5%. The error we see constantly is everything pooled into Class 8, which understates the deduction on exactly the computer equipment that is obsolete first and overstates the pool for years afterwards. Correcting the split recovers real money, and the correction has to be made while the years are still open to adjustment.
What CCA class is a service or patrol vehicle?
A service or patrol vehicle generally goes to Class 10. A vehicle that meets the definition of an automobile in ITA subsection 248(1) and costs more than the prescribed limit falls into Class 10.1 instead, where each vehicle sits in its own separate class and neither recapture nor a terminal loss arises on disposal. Those two facts matter because they change the arithmetic on a disposal, not just the rate. We will not tell you in advance that a particular van, SUV or car is or is not an automobile for this purpose, and we do not quote the prescribed cost limit at you, because the definition has exclusions that turn on how the vehicle is built and used and the limit is set by regulation. We review each vehicle against the definition before it goes into a pool, and we document the conclusion.
How is an acquired contract book depreciated?
Buying a book of accounts buys an intangible, and the first question is which class it belongs in. Goodwill and an acquired customer or monitoring book of indefinite life generally land in Class 14.1 at 5%. Where the agreements acquired have a fixed legal term, Class 14 over that life may be the right answer instead, and which applies is determined from the agreements before the deal closes rather than decided afterwards by whoever posts the journal entry. The second question is allocation: a purchase price that covers accounts, equipment and a non-compete should be allocated across them, because the three depreciate differently and a non-compete engages the restrictive covenant rules. What we most often inherit is the whole price expensed, or dropped into one undocumented goodwill figure with no schedule behind it, which costs deduction and fails the first question a buyer’s adviser asks.
What happens if I miss a source deduction remittance?
Source deductions are due on the PD7A by the 15th of the month following the month the wages were paid, and CRA’s late-remittance penalty is graduated and reaches 10%. On a business where wages and the statutory costs on them are the dominant cost, one missed cycle is a material number rather than a rounding error, and interest runs on top. The exposure does not stop at the corporation: directors can be assessed personally for unremitted source deductions under ITA section 227.1 and for unremitted GST/HST under ETA section 323, with the window in ITA subsection 227.1(4) running two years from the day a person last ceased to be a director. We are not telling you that any director is liable, because that depends on the facts and on the defences available. We are telling you that remittance belongs in the monthly close, not at year-end.
What can a security company write off?
Wages and the statutory costs on them, WSIB premiums, licensing, renewal and training costs, subcontracted services, wholesale monitoring and communication fees, cabling and consumables, van stock, uniforms and equipment, vehicles and fuel, control-room and office premises, insurance and bonding premiums, software subscriptions, CANASA and ASIS International dues, and professional fees. On capital, field equipment goes to Class 8 at 20%, monitoring workstations and servers to Class 50 at 55%, software to Class 12 at 100%, vehicles to Class 10, a leasehold to Class 13 and an acquired contract book to Class 14.1, all on Schedule 8. Equipment held for resale is inventory under ITA section 10 instead. A bad debt on an unpaid customer invoice is deductible under ITA paragraph 20(1)(p). Records are kept six years under ITA section 230.
How do I value my security company if I sell it?
A buyer prices the recurring revenue base first, and almost everything else second. A book of multi-year monitoring agreements with low attrition is the asset; the equipment, the vans and the office fittings are usually treated as supporting it rather than driving the price. That is why the statements have to show recurring monitoring revenue separately from equipment, installation and manned-hour work, and why deferred revenue is deducted rather than added, since a term only part delivered is an obligation the buyer inherits. Unremitted source deductions and accrued wages are the first thing a buyer’s adviser looks for. On structure, a share sale can access the $1.25M Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption under ITA 110.6 where the shares qualify, with purification and a two-year runway. An asset sale allocates the price across the book, the equipment and a non-compete, and brings recapture where proceeds exceed undepreciated capital cost.

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Security Company Accounting & Tax Done Right.

Every bundled agreement read against ETA section 138 and recharges against ETA section 178 before a line is coded, with no element characterised until the contract is read, equipment for resale valued as inventory under ITA section 10, equipment you install and still own carried in Class 8 at 20% instead of expensed as materials, monitoring reserved under ITA paragraph 20(1)(m) for months not yet rendered, credits and escalator adjustments run through ETA section 232 credit notes, hours worked but not yet invoiced brought into income, monitoring workstations in Class 50 at 55%, and the contract book and its attrition shown the way a lender and a buyer read them. AFFORDABLE flat fees, no hourly billing. Licensed CPA Ontario. 1300+ five-star reviews. 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.



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