Remote Accounting Facilitated by Paperless Offices
It’s a paperless world and your financial needs can be serviced by remote accounting in the GTA
(Greater Toronto Area). The St. Catharines-based firm of Jones & O’Connell LLP is currently working for clients
in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Golden Horseshoe as well as in its home base in the Niagara Region.
Technology facilitates the firm’s ability to work remotely with clients. Jones & O’Connell LLP
is a paperless office. Costs are reduced, with less need for storage and printing costs. The firm’s productivity is
higher because of the ease of accessing documents. Response times can be swifter and going paperless makes remote
accounting easier and efficient.
The paperless office also enhances collaboration, both with the client and within the firm itself.
The team approach of Jones & O’Connell LLP means that a wide variety of accounting tasks are possible – from tax
compliance to setting up computer systems to business and estate planning. The firm can easily draw on the varied
specialties of its in-house staff to truly be a "one stop” paperless operation.
Engagement Reviews are Performed Throughout the GTA
One important task that Jones & O’Connell LLP performs throughout the GTA is monitoring. It
performs assurance engagements at other firms and puts systems in place to help those firms comply efficiently with
accounting protocols.
On-going monitoring is required, as well as cyclical inspection of completed files. Engagement
reviews are conducted after an accountant has completed an audit of a company’s financial statements. In that
review, an auditor provides limited assurance on the accuracy of the financial statement, after performing
analytical review procedures.
The review engagements can provide a limited assurance report, whereby the auditors
state that they did not find anything that caused them to doubt the veracity of the file being reviewed.
Working from Home is Part of Trend to Remote Accounting
The events of 2020 have caused a massive change in how we work. A paperless office has a health
advantage, by making it possible for an increasing amount of tasks to be undertaken from home offices. Traditionally
working from home has been the domain of the self-employed but this has changed radically to include many salaried
and commission employees. And, with it, there have been some tax changes.
Salaried employees working from home must meet one of two criteria before they can begin deducting
the costs of their home office space.
- The home space must be the area where the waged employee spends 50% of work time.
- Alternately, the workspace deducted must be there to only earn employment income – a designated space - and used
regularly in the course of employment duties.
If either criterion is met, a whole range of costs become deductible, including percentages of
hydro and heating bills, as well as home maintenance. For employees on commission there is an even broader share of
costs eligible.
Many accounting firms maintain informative websites, with blog postings on tax changes. In a time
of great upheaval in our society, Jones & O’Connell LLP’s blog updates can be extremely helpful in determining
not only the tax requirements of working from home, but also how CERB and RRIF changes may affect an individual. It
all adds up to making remote accounting in the GTA easier and more available to clients.