Professional Services and Practices Accounting & Bookkeeping Calgary
Professional Practices Accounting and Bookkeeping Calgary
A practice sells time and judgment. You see the patient, draft the agreement, stamp the drawing, or ship the campaign. The money arrives later; through a billing agency, an associate's split, or a retainer you collected months ago.
Meanwhile, your monthly corporate overhead, physical office rent, and dedicated staff payroll fall due on rigid, fixed calendar dates. Your practice funds today's operational costs with yesterday's collections.
At the same time, this month's active, unbilled work sits stranded on your desk as an unquantified asset.
Managing this cash-flow mismatch requires pristine financial architecture.
At Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting, we engineer specialized, paperless bookkeeping, cloud accounting, and Fractional CFO services for owner-managed professional practices. We serve Calgary, Cochrane, Chestermere, Okotoks, and Airdrie.
We reconcile your complex billing cycles and isolate your true net margins. You see what your practice keeps after you pay the staff, the associates, and the landlord.
Start with a free, no-obligation discussion:
Fixed monthly fee, confirmed upfront. No hourly billing.
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Professional Services and Practices Accounting & Bookkeeping Calgary, Cochrane, Chestermere, Okotoks, and Airdrie
What Each Kind of Practice Puts on Its Books
Health Practices
Medical Clinics and Family Physicians
A family clinic that adds aesthetics, uninsured services, or allied health runs several businesses under one roof. The province pays the physicians by visit, by hour, and by panel. The other lines bill the patient at the desk. One front desk, one nursing team, and one supply order serve each line, so the bank balance hides which line brings in the margin. We split your financial statements by line, so each one reports its revenue, staff cost, supplies, and margin. Exempt medical services and taxable aesthetics stay on separate lines, so your GST return holds up. Before you add a provider or a line, our Fractional CFO forecast spells out the billings it needs to carry itself.
Dental Practices
A dental office pushes hygiene, general dentistry, and cosmetic work through the same chairs, staff, and lab. Hygienists sit on payroll, associates take a share of what they produce, and the equipment loan comes due either way. The bank balance cannot say which chair and which line of work pay their way. We set up hygiene, dentistry, and cosmetic work as separate lines in your books. Each one carries its revenue against staff, associate fees, lab costs, and supplies. Your chairs, units, and their loans stand on the balance sheet, so the statements reflect what the chairs cost to own. Most dental work is GST exempt; cosmetic treatment and front desk products are not, and the two never share a line.
Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, and Massage Clinics
A multidisciplinary clinic mixes employees with associates who keep a share of their own billings. Our Payroll Services pay the employees. Each associate's share posts as a cost on its own line, so you see what each practitioner netted the clinic. Treatment by a licensed practitioner is GST exempt; retail products at the front desk are not. We separate the two, so your GST return is right.
Optometry Practices
Eye exams and eyewear sales ring through the same till under different GST rules. We give exam revenue and retail revenue their own lines, so each one yields its own margin. Frames and lenses wait in inventory until the sale, and the GST on them lands where it belongs.
Veterinary Clinics
Veterinary services charge GST, unlike human health care, and the clinic sells drugs, food, and supplies on top. We track services and retail as two lines, so each one returns its own margin. We file the GST on both. Your surgical and imaging equipment goes on the balance sheet, and your tax return takes the CCA.
Psychologists and Counselling Practices
Associates keep a share of what they bill, and the practice holds the rest for rent, staff, and the owner. We build your financial statements so you read what each practitioner billed, what they kept, and what the practice cleared. Some services are GST exempt and some are not; the two live on separate lines.
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Legal and Regulated Professions
Law Firms
Fees attract GST, disbursements belong to the client's file, and the work often waits unbilled for weeks. We park disbursements outside fees, so your margin measures the fee alone. Your monthly statements list the files you have billed and the clients who still owe.
Engineering Consultancies
Projects stretch over months, and the fee comes in stages against the work done. We open a project for each one in QuickBooks® Online, so each project states what it realized after subconsultants and costs billed to it. Your monthly statements mark the clients who pay on time and the ones who pay late.
Architecture Firms
Consultant fees and reimbursables move through the firm on the way to the client. When they post as revenue, the firm's own fee looks larger than it is. We record each project's own fee, with consultant fees and reimbursables outside it. Additional services take their own line, so you know what fell outside the fee and whether you billed it. Your monthly statements flag the projects that still carry unbilled fees.
Land Surveyors and Land Agents
Boundary surveys, construction layout, and land acquisition each attach different costs to the file. We assign each type of work its own line, so it tracks its revenue and the costs billed to it. Crew wages flow through payroll. Your trucks and survey equipment appear on the balance sheet, with the CCA on the tax return. Your monthly statements identify the clients who pay promptly and the ones who run late.
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Advisory and Creative Firms
Management and Business Consultants
A retainer the client pays in advance is not yet revenue. We book it as unearned until you deliver the work, so your monthly statements contain revenue you have delivered. We tell you when an incorporated consultant with one client faces the personal services business rules.
IT Consultants and Managed Service Providers
Monthly service agreements, project work, and hardware sold to clients come with different margins. We post each of the three to its own revenue and cost lines, so you learn what each one generated. Hardware bought for a client counts as a cost of that sale, not an overhead.
Marketing, Design, and Advertising Agencies
Media bought for a client and freelancer invoices pass through the agency. We strip those pass-through costs out of your fees, so your statements prove what the agency pulled in. We prepare the year-end slips for freelancers, and the staff draw their wages through payroll.
Recruiting and Staffing Agencies
Temp wages go out every week; the client's cheque lands weeks later. We remit the deductions on their due dates, so a slow client does not turn into a CRA penalty. We apply the right GST on each placement fee, including out-of-province clients, so an audit passes without adjustment. Your monthly statements line up what each client paid you against the payroll hours coded to them.
Book My Free DiscussionWhat Each Radiant Skies Service Delivers for Your Practice
We do not just look backward at last year's numbers. We run your books as a working system. It keeps you compliant, tells you your margins, and tests your next growth move before you make it.
Bookkeeping:
A clean monthly close for complex revenue: Each month we reconcile your bank against the money that came in. That money arrives as provincial health billing deposits, insurer payments, card processor deposits, and retainers paid in advance. Taxable services and exempt treatments stay on separate lines, so your GST return stands up when the CRA asks. We keep your WCB-Alberta reporting current.
Accounting:
Margin by professional and by service line: Stop guessing which chairs or files make money. Each month you receive statements that compare what each associate or partner billed against what the practice paid them. You see what each service line earned after direct supplies and lab fees.
Payroll:
Wages and year-end slips without the crunch: Your employees receive their pay on their day, and we calculate and remit the CRA source deductions. At year end we prepare and file the slips your payroll requires, so slip season is not a scramble.
Corporate tax:
The return for a professional corporation: We prepare and file your corporate tax return and claim the CCA on clinical equipment, software, leasehold improvements, and practice vehicles. Your professional corporation's annual filings go in on time.
Fractional CFO:
A forecast before you scale: Before you sign a longer lease or bring on a high-earning associate, we build the forecast. It quantifies how much a new hire or a new location must bill each month to cover its own cost.
Book My Free DiscussionChallenges Practice Owners Bring to Us
1. A Professional Corporation With Its Own Rulebook - Can you keep the books and file the tax for my PC?
Physicians, dentists, lawyers, and engineers in Alberta practice through a professional corporation. Our Bookkeeping Services keep the PC's books. Our Tax Services file its corporate return and watch the share and permit rules your profession sets.
2. One Client, One Corporation - Will the CRA call my consultancy a personal services business?
A personal services business is the CRA's label for an incorporated contractor who works like an employee. The label costs you the small business deduction and raises your tax rate sharply. Our Tax Services read your client contracts and your working arrangement. We ask the CRA's own question: would you be an employee without the corporation? You receive our written opinion before the CRA asks it.
3. Clients Outside Alberta - Which sales tax goes on the invoice?
A marketing agency or an IT consultancy bills clients in other provinces and other countries. Each province sets its own sales tax, and the place of supply decides which one applies. Our Bookkeeping Services set the GST rules in QuickBooks® Online by place of supply, so each invoice carries the right GST. Digital services to clients outside Canada post as zero-rated for GST.
4. A Server in the Back Office - Can you move my practice to the cloud?
Many established clinics and firms still run on server-based accounting software. Our Bookkeeping Services migrate the practice to QuickBooks® Online. Your financial history, payroll records, and capital asset schedule transfer intact. Your patient or client billing cycle continues without interruption.
Book My Free DiscussionModern Tools for a Paperless Practice
The Ledger: QuickBooks® Online
You do not treat patients or run client files on paper, and your accounting should not run on paper either. QuickBooks® Online keeps a practice's books on its own: the bank, the card processor, payroll, and the GST return. Two apps connect to it when the paper piles up. We bring both and set them up, and you need neither to get the monthly close.
Receipts and Supplier Bills: Dext®
Your office manager emails the supply invoice, the lab bill, and the software subscription to Dext®, and a professional photographs a conference receipt on the road. Dext® reads the supplier, the amount, and the GST off each one and posts it to QuickBooks® Online. If bills arrive by the dozen each month, we install Dext® for you, so each one lands in the right account.
Associate Splits, Contractor Fees, and Supplier Payments: Plooto®
You approve an associate's monthly split, a freelancer's invoice, or a supplier bill with one tap on your phone. Plooto® sends the payment by electronic transfer and records it in QuickBooks® Online. For clients on a monthly retainer, it collects by pre-authorized debit on the agreed date.
Your Practice Software Stays Where It Is
Your clinic, legal, or project software keeps the schedule, the patient and client records, and the billing. Where it connects to QuickBooks® Online, its summaries reach the books; where it does not, we post the monthly totals it reports.
Clean Data, Quiet Year-Ends
We reconcile your bank, your card processor, and your credit cards at each monthly close. Twelve clean closes make a year-end that takes days, not weeks, and statements a lender or a buyer can read. The apps change what the close has to work with, not the close itself. We set up the apps you choose and connect them to QuickBooks® Online, as our onboarding playbook describes.
Book My Free DiscussionFee Structure Built on Value, Just Like Your Practice
A patient books an appointment, a client retains your firm, or a partner signs off on a layout. You quote a clear, upfront fee. That fee rests on your expertise and judgment, not on a ticking clock. We believe your Chartered Professional Accountant should work the same way.
Our services run on a single, transparent monthly subscription. It stays fixed and predictable, without a stopwatch running in the background.
No surprise billable hours: a long phone call about a complex associate split or a sudden CRA audit letter adds nothing to your fee.
No peak-season surcharges: a quarter packed with large client billings adds nothing to your fee either.
Your fee changes only when you expand the practice, such as a new clinic location or a new partner. We map out and agree on that new scope together beforehand.
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Stop Trading Hours for Admin. Run the Practice on Numbers Instead.
Your time belongs in front of your patients, inside a legal file, or at the drawing board. It does not belong in a spreadsheet of associate splits or a billing system you do not trust.
Our Accounting Services break your financial statement each month by service line and by professional, so the statement names where the profit sits.
Our Fractional CFO Services test the next associate or the second location before you sign.
Book Your Free Discussion
You speak directly with Waheed Khan, CPA, CFA, MBA. Bring your associate agreements, your billing setup, and the question you cannot answer from the bank balance. A fixed monthly fee, in writing, follows within the week.
Scope, Regulatory & Legal Disclaimers
General Information Disclaimer: The financial, compliance, and tax information provided on this page is designed strictly for general educational purposes. It does not constitute, and must not be used as a substitute for, personalized professional accounting, legal, or tax advice tailored to your specific corporate structure or personal financial situation.
Scope Note: Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting is a professional CPA practice registered with CPA Alberta, providing accounting, tax, and advisory services — not assurance.
Software Subscriptions & Professional Fees: Our fee covers the accounting, compliance, and tax work we do. You pay your QuickBooks® Online, Dext®, and Plooto® subscriptions to those providers directly; our fee does not include them.
Trademark Note: QuickBooks® Online is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. Dext® is a registered trademark of Dext Software Ltd. Plooto® is a registered trademark of Plooto Inc. Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting is an independent professional services practice. These companies do not endorse, sponsor, or affiliate with us.