1. Anything you paid for with a personal card "for the business"
If you bought office supplies on your personal Visa, that's still a business expense. The receipt proves it. Without the receipt, the CRA assumes it was personal — and you eat the difference. Keep the receipts, mark them "business" in your records, and reimburse yourself properly.
2. Mileage and parking
Canada Revenue Agency allows a per-kilometre deduction for business driving, plus parking. Most owners track the big trips and forget the small ones. Those add up. A $12 parking receipt, twice a week, is over $1,200 a year. Track it or lose it.
3. Home office — the boring stuff
Not just rent and utilities. The CRA also accepts a percentage of:
• Internet
• Home insurance
• Property tax
• Minor repairs to the workspace
You need a reasonable square-footage calculation and receipts for everything. It's not glamorous. It's not exciting. It's exactly the kind of thing we handle for our clients every year.
What to do about it
Keep every receipt for 6 years. Photograph them. File them by month. Then send the whole pile to your accountant and let them sort it out. Or — and we're biased here — hire us and stop thinking about receipts altogether.
Book a consultation and we'll show you exactly what you're missing.