r/canadasmallbusiness

Problem: Most SME businesses don’t have a CFO.

They have QBO, Xero or Sage and maybe an accountant they speak with a few times a year, and a stack of reports that technically answer everything… but don’t actually answer the questions they’re trying to ask.

Things like:

• Why is cash tighter this month when sales were up?
• Which expenses are quietly growing faster than revenue?
• Which customers are actually the most profitable?
• What changed since last month that deserves my attention?
• If I only had 15 minutes to review my finances, where should I start?

The information exists. Connecting the dots is usually the hard part.

I’m working on a simple dashboard that tries to explain the story behind the numbers instead of simply displaying financial statements. Before I spend more time building it, I’d rather hear from actual business owners than make assumptions.

If you could make your accounting software answer one question automatically every month, what would it be?

For anyone interested in giving brutally honest feedback, I’ve put together a very early prototype. I’m not looking for praise, users, waitlist. I’d genuinely like to know what’s confusing, what’s missing, and what would actually make it useful.

Shipping costs can really affect a business. I have been checking out shipping software options in Canada.

I want to find a shipping platform that lets me compare rates from carriers make labels, automate tasks and manage everything in one place. I do not want to pay another monthly fee.

I have started looking at Rollo Ship. It is available, in Canada. Seems to have the features I need. I am still checking other options.

For Canadian business owners what shipping platform works best for your business? What made you choose it?

My wife and I bought a small manufacturing business last year from my old boss. We both work in unrelated public service careers, and I’m now responsible for the marketing/sales side.

The business manufactures low-voltage landscape lighting in the Fraser Valley, BC. Our products are higher-end than what you find at home depot, walmart, etc. Most of our existing customers are landscapers or electricians who install and recommend the lights to their clients.

Customers we already have seem to really like the products. Many have been buying them for years. The person who started the business was a landscaper and had a retail store in a city near ours. The main selling points are quality, design, price point/margins for the contractor market, and the fact that they’re made in Canada.

My background is in marketing, not B2B sales. I’ve been improving the website, social media, and B2C side, which helps with the occasional online sale, but real growth is probably direct through landscape professionals and electricians, or distributors like landscape supply stores and maybe garden centres.

Where I’m struggling is outbound sales.

Cold calling has actually been met with some interest, but once I follow up by email the conversation usually dies. I’ve also contacted landscape supply stores, but they're too busy during the season to consider new products. Good for next year potentislly but we miss out on this years projects. Cold email feels like it either goes to spam or gets ignored. I’ve considered using one of those mass email outreach systems, but it feels like it could be a waste of time or damage the brand if done poorly.

For anyone here who has grown a small B2B business, especially selling to contractors, trades, retailers, wholesalers, or distributors:

What actually worked for you?

• Is cold calling still worth doing, or should I focus more on in-person visits? We're focusing on growing within BC and AB for this year.
• How would you approach landscapers or electricians without sounding like every other supplier?
• Should I focus on contractors first, or try to get into supply stores/garden centres?
• Are sample kits, demo displays, worth offering?
• How many follow-ups is reasonable before moving on?
• Would you avoid mass cold email entirely?
• What would you do in the first 90 days if you were trying to build a B2B dealer/installer network from scratch?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Hello! I have a funding question for my small business.

I have a corporation that generates a good cash flow but we are now at an impasse and want to grow. We are looking into BDC to fund . My question is that if we expand, we are going to do it under a different name, but both companies will be under same umbrella.

Would bdc take into account our progress and sales of the main company ? Right now we do custom products and want to expand a leg into e-commerce. But we want to brand the e-commerce under another name.

Anyone with any bdc experience, let me know what options are available for this type of growth!

Thank you!

As I've been learning more about growing my business, I always assumed most people either used their own savings or went to the bank for a loan.

The more I look into it, though, the more funding options I keep coming across.

• Bootstrapping
• Business Loans
• Lines of Credit
• Investors
• Government Programs
• Business Grants

It made me wonder...

How did you actually fund your business when you were getting started?

Looking back, would you make the same decision again?

Building solo is easy now. AI makes shipping fast and that's kind of the problem. There's a million apps out there that are just... fine. Normal. Forgettable. That's not what I'm after.

I am a developer but I am not just looking for another developer. Tech stack doesn't matter much anymore that part's easy. What I want is someone with drive and a point of view. Maybe you have got an idea. Maybe you know sales, marketing or some domain inside out or developer. Maybe you just see problems worth solving.

I don't have a fixed idea I am married to yet and that's on purpose. I would rather figure that out with the right person than force some half-baked concept. Let's brainstorm, argue about ideas, build and actually grow something together.

I'm in Canada but you can be anywhere in the world, we will make the timezones work if the collab is good.

If any of this sounds like you, drop a comment or DM me. Not looking for a resume, just want to talk to real people who care about this stuff as much as I do.

I'm an accountant who works with Canadian small businesses, and I see the same questions come up all the time around:

• GST/HST
• Bookkeeping
• Payroll
• CRA letters and reviews
• Incorporation vs sole proprietorship
• Corporate tax

Rather than guessing, I thought I'd spend some time answering questions here.

Whether you're just starting a business or you've been running one for years, ask me anything about your bookkeeping, taxes, or CRA requirements. If I know the answer, I'll explain it.

Hopefully this helps a few business owners avoid costly mistakes.

Own a recreational sporting company here, wants to become supplier for Canadian Tire, how to process please?

I have been talking to a few independent restaurant owners and the same issue keeps coming up. Finding reliable delivery drivers is getting harder, especially for evenings and weekends. Some use Uber Eats or Skip but aren't happy with the commissions eating into their margins. Others hire their own drivers but struggle when someone calls in sick or quits with no notice.

Is this something restaurant owners across Canada are dealing with or is it more of a local thing? Curious to hear how others are handling it.

For context, my brother and I took over a company in Canada that my father started. It’s a blue-collar business, but at this point it mostly runs itself. We have long-term contracts, experienced employees, and my brother and I mainly step in to solve problems, show face, and make major decisions. The business does well and could keep growing if we could make the partnership work.

The problem is that my brother and I clearly can’t work together anymore. He creates dissent with employees, constantly fights with me, threatens me, and recently had an assault charge laid against him after he punched me at work.

There are also terms in our Shareholders’ Agreement that I believe he isn’t following. For example, he hired his three sons into the business as labourers without my approval, he was required to get a DZ licence but hasn’t, and I believe he’s doing side jobs with company trucks and pocketing the money, though that last one is hard to prove.

We had a business valuation done, and I offered to buy him out for 50% of the valued amount. I’m nervous about doing this because he openly says he’ll compete with me if I buy him out, and I’m concerned he may try to steal contracts or sabotage the business, even with a non-compete.

He and his lawyer keep rejecting the offer, saying it has to be reciprocal, like a shotgun clause, meaning I’d have to be willing to accept the same offer for my own shares. I don’t want to sell my share of the business. His lawyer is now saying that if I won’t make a reciprocal offer, they’ll take it to court and try to force arbitration (which can take a long time and be very expensive).

We don’t have a shotgun clause or anything similar, so we’re stuck. I don’t want to sell because the business supports my lifestyle, the after-tax buyout money wouldn’t be enough to live on, and I don’t have it in me to start another company. At the same time, I don’t trust my brother not to sabotage the business if I buy him out.

Any advice, opinions, or insight would be appreciated.

There is lots of talk about Venn on this subreddit as it's quickly become a popular fintech option for small businesses here in Canada, wanted to give my honest review after ~6 ish months of daily use. I use Wealthsimple for my personal investing and trialed the business account when it came out but found it lackluster in h2h comparison with Venn.

Pros:

1. The USD/EUR/GBP accounts are genuinely really solid if you're working with international vendors. You're actually able to send/receive an ACH which alone saves me time and headaches when dealing with Americans (iykyk)
2. I don't have great personal credit and didn't want to tie a personal guarantee to my business, corporate cards were a great option to get around this. Still maintain a LOC with big 5 in case I need it, but try to only use for emergencies.
3. The functionality of the platform is genuinely really good. It's just way easier to log in and send a wire or look at finances than it was with Big 5, activity and reporting has really improved over the last 6 months as well. Great to get that view of the data.
4. Support has been solid. I had a wire delayed and they resolved it within the hour.
5. Recent app launch shows that they're actually listening to users. It's for sure not perfect, but appreciate them giving me something to use on the road and expecting this to improve in future.

Cons:

1. On the free plan you can find better rates than .45% for fx conversions honestly (Wise etc). With my volume it made sense to go to Pro for the .25% but if you're smaller this could be a deterrent.
2. No cheque deposit. Feel like they're gonna release this soon hopefully, feels easy with the app launch but who knows. Pretty annoying as I have one customer who still insists on cheque payments but not the end of the world.

Curious what other people think? I also use QBO for the accounting side so the integration is pretty sweet, been looking at Wave but I just don't wanna switch another software. So annoying.

I launched a small Canadian classifieds site called AD18 because I was tired of free listing sites being full of spam, fake posts, and low-effort listings.

It’s paid-only, so the idea is simple: fewer random posts, more serious listings. People can post services, gigs, events, items, promos, or creator/business listings.

It’s live now, and I’m doing a launch offer: 30-day base listings are $1 with code LAUNCH30.

Not trying to pretend this is huge yet — I’m just trying to get real Canadian posters on it and improve it from there.

If anyone has feedback on the idea or the site, I’d genuinely appreciate it.

I've been building a small digital services business here in Canada, offering virtual assistant, graphic design, and social media management services.

As I've been learning more about running a business, I've realized there's no shortage of advice online, but a lot of it comes from people outside Canada. Sometimes I wonder if the challenges are a little different here.

For those of you running businesses in Canada, what's been the biggest challenge you've faced over the past year?

Has it been:

• Finding clients?
• Managing cash flow?
• Hiring?
• Marketing?
• Rising business costs?
• Something else?

'm still in the process of growing my business, and I'd really like to learn from people who are building businesses in the Canadian market. Hearing real experiences is much more valuable than reading generic advice online.

Looking back, what's one lesson you've learned that you wish you'd known earlier?

Hey everyone!

I'm currently working full-time, but I've been learning product management on the side and using the learnings I am building a few small tools for personal use along the way. Lately I've been trying to figure out if I can solve a real world problem that is worth spending more time on.

While thinking that through, I looked at my own day-to-day and realized how much time I personally lose just drafting the "proper" email, especially professional ones. I work in retail banking, and over the years I've had a lot of conversations with small business owners who have shared: That between chasing vendors, dealing with merchants, and sorting out with banks, getting the wording right to their emails eats up more time than it should.

A lot of people lean on AI chatbots for this now, but I've found it's not always a clean fix. It often takes several rounds of prompting just to get something that sounds like you instead of being robotic, and if you're not used to prompting well, it can end up taking just as long as writing it yourself. I am trying to think of ways to bridge this but I want to understand it from a bit depth.

I understand this post is not directly related to this group but it will be a gateway to start my own small side project on the side. I just want to understand if this is a real, widespread problem before I go further with it, or if it's just something I've noticed anecdotally.

If you've dealt with this, I'd love to hear about it in the comments: what kind of emails take the most time, what you've tried, what's frustrating about it. If you'd rather answer a few structured questions instead, drop a comment and I'll DM you a short survey.

Really just trying to validate whether this is worth digging into further. Appreciate any thoughts!

A couple weeks ago we posted about the bookkeeping tool we built for ourselves after getting worn down by QuickBooks. The thread got more critical, and more useful, than we expected, so this is the follow-up: what we heard, what we changed, and what we're still working on. We're still looking for people to poke holes in it.

First, the fair hit we took. A few people pointed out that trusting your books to a numbered corp with no names attached is a hard no, which is a completely reasonable thing to want. We're Andy and Jaden, we run a small business in Toronto, and this started as the tool we wanted for our own books. We're not disappearing in three months. It's the thing we use every day ourselves, and we're glad to answer anything about who we are.

What the feedback pushed to the front:

- Accountants won't touch it without a file lock and an audit log. We built both. A period can be locked so entries can't be changed once it's closed, and there's a full audit log of every change, including who made it and when. The audit log is in the web app for now, not the mobile app yet. For anyone doing books for clients, we'd value hearing what else would need to be in place before it's something you'd sign off on.

- Does it do payroll and sales tax? Payroll is in, on both web and mobile. Canadian CPP, EI, and income tax deductions across all provinces, plus T4, T4A, and ROE. It's an estimate you verify against CRA's PDOC for now, but it's there. GST and sales tax are wired into invoices and reports.

- How does bank linking work? Bank connections run through Plaid today, and transactions can also be imported from a bank CSV or QBO export if the live connection gets flaky, which was a Wave pain point a few people raised. We're evaluating a second aggregator based on the thread.

- Just show us, rather than asking us to download it first. Fair. A short demo video is the next thing we're putting together so it can be seen before installing anything.

Still in process

- A proper demo and walkthrough video, as above.

- Some of the deeper accounting tools (budgets, fixed assets, bank reconciliation) are web only right now. Mobile covers the day-to-day: receipts, mileage, invoices, and transactions.

That's where we're at two weeks in. A lot of this list came straight out of the last thread, we are looking forward to your continued feedback on ways we can make your life easier.

Hey everyone,

I'm putting together a list of business networking communities in the GTA that meet regularly. Hopefully this becomes a useful resource for anyone looking to grow their network or business.

If you know of any, please comment with:

• The name of the group
• A sentence or two about what it's like and who it's best suited for, cost and commitment.
• Feedback / review

So far I'm aware of and exploring:

• BNI - Multiple sub groups in the city consisting of members for each trade. Meets weekly early mornings and share leads. Cost is around $2000 and reduces for annual renewals.

Looking forward to discovering some new communities. Thanks!

I have about $40,000 CAD in savings, no business experience, and I’m currently unemployed.
Available capital: $40,000 CAD
Skills & experience: No business experience. I’m willing to learn and put in the work.
Preferred industries: I’m open to almost anything with good long-term potential.
Online or local business: I’m open to both online businesses and brick-and-mortar businesses.
Have I run a business before? No.
If you were in my position, what would you do? Would you start a business, buy an existing one, learn a high-income skill first, invest the money, or take a different path?
I’m looking for practical advice from people who have actually built businesses or made this kind of decision.

I'm based in Saskatchewan and I've been trying to understand what running a small business in Canada actually looks like day to day. Specifically the admin side. Follow-ups, invoicing, client communication, scheduling, all the things that pile up but don't directly make you money. I'm not selling anything. I'm trying to understand where people actually feel stuck before I decide what kind of problem I want to help solve.
If there's one non-core task that consistently costs you time or money, what is it? And if you've tried to solve it already, what did you try?