Written by Maryam Ajorloo, CPA · Reviewed by Behdad Karimi Dermeni, CPA
A bookkeeping template is a ready-made spreadsheet for recording every dollar your business earns and spends, sorted into categories, so you can see your profit each month and hand clean totals to your accountant at year-end. A good Canadian one also tracks the GST/HST, QST or PST you collect and pay.
If your current system is a banking app, a folder of screenshots and a vague plan to "sort it out in April," you are in good company. (April has heard that promise before.) This free bookkeeping template gives you a simple, proper home for your numbers, built by CPAs for Canadian small businesses: an Excel spreadsheet with sales tax columns for every province and expense categories that line up with the Canada Revenue Agency's (CRA) Form T2125.
No form, no email address, no sales call. Download it, fill in one setup tab, and start logging. And when typing in transactions starts to feel like a second job, you can connect your bank to ReInvestWealth and let the AI do the categorizing.
Download the free bookkeeping template
Download the bookkeeping template (Excel, free, no sign-up)
It opens in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers. Cream cells are for you to type in; grey cells calculate on their own. Inside you get seven tabs:
How to use: short instructions, so you can fill it in without this page open.
Setup: your business name, province, fiscal year start, and whether you are registered for GST/HST. Type in the GST/HST and QST or PST rates you charge, so the template never relies on an outdated rate.
Income: one row per sale or invoice. Enter the amount before tax and the GST/HST, QST or PST calculates.
Expenses: one row per receipt, with a drop-down of categories that match the T2125 line numbers, a column for the tax you can claim back, and a "Receipt saved?" check that turns red when the answer is no.
Monthly Summary: income, expenses and profit for each month, plus sales tax collected, input tax credits and the net amount you owe.
Year-End (T2125): every category totalled by T2125 line, with meals and entertainment already cut to 50%. This is the tab your accountant will thank you for.
Example: eight common transactions for an Ontario consultant, showing exactly how each one is recorded.
Each log has 500 rows. That is plenty for most small businesses, and if you fill them, it is a sign worth reading (more on that below).
What a bookkeeping spreadsheet actually needs to track
Here is the rule of thumb that makes every bookkeeping system work: record every dollar in and every dollar out, give each one a category, and keep the proof. That is the whole job. Everything else is formatting.
In practice, that means four things for every transaction:
The date and who it was with. The customer you invoiced or the vendor you paid.
The amount, split from the sales tax. Your income is the amount before GST/HST. The tax you collect belongs to the CRA (or Revenu Québec), so it lives in its own column.
The category. Advertising, rent, software, travel. Categories are what turn a list of payments into a profit and loss statement, and into the numbers on your tax return.
The receipt. If you cannot back up an expense, you may not be able to claim it.
A bookkeeping template is only useful if it does those four things consistently. Fancy dashboards are optional. Consistency is not.
How to use the bookkeeping template in 6 steps
Fill in the Setup tab. Enter your business name, choose your province, set the first day of your fiscal year (January 1 for most sole proprietors), and answer whether you are registered for GST/HST. Then type in the sales tax rates you charge (GST or HST, plus QST or PST if your province has one). Check the current rates on canada.ca when you start and whenever a rate changes.
Log every sale on the Income tab. One row per invoice or sale. Enter the amount before tax and pick a category. If you are registered, the GST/HST (and QST or PST) calculates from the rates on your Setup tab; overwrite it if you charged a different rate, for example to a customer in another province.
Log every purchase on the Expenses tab. Enter the total you paid, then the GST/HST (and QST in Quebec) you can claim back as an input tax credit. The deductible amount calculates for you. Choose a category from the drop-down; the number in brackets is the matching T2125 line.
Mark whether you kept the receipt. Any "No" turns red, which gives you a to-do list before year-end instead of a surprise during it.
Review the Monthly Summary once a month. Check your profit, and check the net sales tax you owe so it is set aside before the filing deadline. Ten minutes a month beats a lost weekend in April.
Send the Year-End tab to your accountant. Your totals are already sorted by T2125 line, with meals at 50% and equipment, home office and owner draws kept separate. They can go straight to the tax work instead of untangling a bank export.
If you fall a few months behind, do not panic and do not start over. Work through the backlog one month at a time, oldest first. Our guide to catch-up bookkeeping in Canada walks through it.
Canadian details most bookkeeping templates miss
Most free bookkeeping spreadsheets online are built for another country. They have one "tax" column, no idea what an input tax credit is, and expense categories that do not match any Canadian form. These are the details this template handles for you.
Sales tax by province: GST/HST, QST and PST
The sales tax you charge depends on where you do business. These are the rates in effect as of October 2026:
HST: Ontario (13%), Nova Scotia (14%), and New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island (15%), all remitted to the CRA.
GST + QST: Quebec charges 5% GST plus 9.975% QST, generally both filed with Revenu Québec.
GST + PST: British Columbia (7% PST), Manitoba (7% RST) and Saskatchewan (6% PST) charge 5% GST plus a provincial sales tax you remit to the province.
GST only: Alberta and the three territories charge 5% GST.
Governments can change sales tax rates at any time (Nova Scotia's HST dropped from 15% to 14% in April 2025, for example). Before you set up the template, double-check the current rate on the CRA's GST/HST calculator and rates page, and with Revenu Québec or your province for QST or PST.
The template keeps the tax you collect and the tax you pay in separate columns, so the Monthly Summary can show what you actually owe: tax collected minus the input tax credits you can claim. To check the tax on a single amount, the GST/HST sales tax calculator works it out for any province.
Not registered yet? You must register once your taxable sales pass $30,000 in a single calendar quarter or over four consecutive quarters. Until then, set "Registered for GST/HST?" to No and the GST/HST columns stay blank. Our quick guide to registering for GST/HST covers when and how.
Expense categories that match the T2125
If you are a sole proprietor, your business income and expenses go on Form T2125, Statement of Business or Professional Activities. Every expense category in the template carries its T2125 line number, from advertising (8521) and office expenses (8810) to travel (9200) and motor vehicle expenses (9281).
That matters more than it sounds. When your categories match the form, year-end is a copy-and-paste job rather than a guessing game. For a line-by-line walkthrough, see our T2125 tax form guide.
Incorporated? A corporation files a T2 with GIFI codes instead of a T2125, but the same categories map across, so the template still works. Your accountant handles the translation.
Meals at 50%, equipment, and owner draws
Three kinds of spending trip up almost every homemade spreadsheet, so the template treats each one differently:
Meals and entertainment: usually only 50% is claimable. You log the full amount; the Year-End tab claims half.
Equipment and other capital purchases: a laptop, a desk or a vehicle is written off over several years through capital cost allowance (CCA), not all at once. The template keeps these out of profit and lists them for your accountant. (Not sure which is which? Our guide to capital expenses vs everyday expenses has a list of common purchases.)
Owner draws and personal purchases: money you take out of the business is not an expense. It has its own category so it never quietly lowers your profit.
Keeping receipts for six years
The CRA generally expects you to keep your records for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to. A bank statement shows that you paid; the receipt shows what you bought, which is what proves the expense is a business expense.
Digital copies are fine as long as they are clear and complete, so a phone photo saved to a dated folder works. The "Receipt saved?" column is there to make sure that folder is actually complete. (If the CRA ever asks, you will be glad it is. Our guide on how far back the CRA can audit a business explains why.)
Logging receipts and matching them to payments by hand is the slowest part of any spreadsheet. It is exactly what ReInvestWealth's Smart Shoebox does for you: forward or upload a receipt and it reads the details and matches it to the bank transaction automatically.
5 common bookkeeping spreadsheet mistakes
Mixing business and personal spending. One shared account turns every month into a sorting exercise. Open a separate business account, even as a sole proprietor, and the template stays clean.
Recording sales with the tax included. If $4,520 goes in as income when $520 of it is HST, your profit is overstated and your sales tax return will not match your books. Enter the amount before tax and let the tax columns do the rest.
Expensing a big purchase all at once. A $2,000 laptop is not a $2,000 expense this year. Use the capital purchase category and let your accountant claim the CCA.
Skipping months. A spreadsheet updated in April is a spreadsheet reconstructed from memory. A fixed monthly slot (the first Friday, say) keeps it accurate and keeps it short.
Forgetting the tax you can claim back. One thing we hear often from customers is confusion about input tax credits. If you are registered, the GST/HST you pay on business purchases usually comes back to you, so leaving the ITC column blank means paying more sales tax than you owe. Our guide on how to track business expenses in Canada goes deeper on building the habit.
When you have outgrown the spreadsheet
A bookkeeping template is a great way to start. It is not always a great way to continue. These are the signs it is time for something that does the typing for you:
You have more than one bank account or card feeding the business, and copying transactions across is eating your evenings.
You are filing GST/HST, QST or PST and want the return built from your books rather than retyped from them.
You need reports a lender or investor will ask for: an income statement and a balance sheet, not just a profit number.
Someone else needs access, like your accountant or a bookkeeper, and emailing spreadsheet versions back and forth has started to produce files called "FINAL_v3_actual."
That is where ReInvestWealth comes in. Connect your bank and the AI Bookkeeper categorizes every transaction properly, the Smart Shoebox matches your receipts, and your GST/HST, QST and PST returns can be filed straight from your books. Built by CPAs, so you do not have to be one. See how it works and start free for 30 days.
Planning ahead as well as looking back? Pair this template with our free cash flow projection template, and use the profit margin calculator once your first few months are in.
Frequently asked questions
Is this bookkeeping template really free?
Yes. It is a free Excel download with no sign-up, no form and no email address required. You can edit it, copy it and share it. It also opens in Google Sheets and Numbers.
Does the bookkeeping template work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the file to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets. The drop-downs, formulas and red receipt flags all carry over. Numbers on a Mac opens it too.
Can a corporation use this template?
Yes. The categories are labelled with T2125 line numbers because that is the form sole proprietors file, but a corporation's income and expenses fall into the same groups. Your accountant maps the totals to GIFI codes for the T2 return.
Do I need to charge GST/HST if I am just starting out?
Not until you pass the $30,000 small supplier threshold, which is measured over a single calendar quarter or four consecutive quarters. Once you cross it, you must register and start charging the tax. You can also register voluntarily before then, which lets you claim input tax credits on your purchases.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for the CRA?
A spreadsheet can be a perfectly acceptable record, as long as it is complete, kept up to date, and backed by receipts and bank statements you keep for six years. The CRA cares about the quality of your records, not the software they live in.
Your bookkeeping should take minutes, not weekends. Connect your bank account and let the AI Bookkeeper categorize your transactions for you, with CPA-level clean books ready for your accountant at year-end. Start free for 30 days →
A note from our CPAs: This guide and template are educational and cover the general rules for Canadian small businesses and sole proprietors. Tax situations vary, so for advice on your specific circumstances, talk to your accountant. (If they use ReInvestWealth, they will already have clean books to work from.)
Written by Maryam Ajorloo, CPA
Maryam Ajorloo is the co-founder of ReInvestWealth and a CPA who specializes in small business tax, sales tax, and everyday bookkeeping. She helps entrepreneurs keep clean, audit-ready books and make sense of write-offs, filing deadlines, and the numbers behind their business. Read more · Connect on LinkedIn
Reviewed by Behdad Karimi Dermeni, CPA
Co-founder of ReInvestWealth and a founding community builder at Stripe. Behdad built ReInvestWealth to give smart, busy entrepreneurs CPA-level accounting without the CPA-level price tag. Read more · Connect on LinkedIn
