In Shediac, a large share of the year’s money arrives in about eight weeks. July and August pay for January and February. Every restaurant, charter operator, shop and seasonal trade in town knows this, and almost nobody’s bookkeeping is set up to reflect it.
Accounting Moncton handles bookkeeping, payroll, HST and business registration for small businesses across Greater Moncton, including Shediac and the communities that joined it in 2023. We’re a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor practice, 26 minutes down Route 15, and the first consultation is free.
Nous offrons nos services en français. We also work with clients in Spanish and Ukrainian.
Book a free consultation, or call (506) 854-6490
A seasonal business needs different bookkeeping, not less of it
Shediac calls itself the Lobster Capital of the World, and the summer economy behind that is real. Parlee Beach is one of the busiest provincial parks in New Brunswick. The Pointe-du-Chêne wharf runs lobster boats, deep-sea charters and restaurants. The Lobster Festival fills the first half of July. Then September arrives and the town gets quiet.
Businesses built on that pattern hit the same four problems.
The winter cash gap. Rent, insurance, loan payments and any year-round staff carry straight through the off-season while revenue doesn’t. The fix isn’t complicated, but it has to happen in advance: know what your fixed monthly cost is from October to May, multiply it out, and treat that number as money that isn’t yours during the summer. You can only do that if the books are current enough to tell you what the number actually is.
HST remitted from money you’ve already spent. If you’re on quarterly filing, the HST you collected in July is due in the autumn, by which time the summer cash is often gone. Setting the collected tax aside as it comes in, rather than finding it later, is the single most useful habit a seasonal business can build.
Seasonal payroll. Hiring students and summer staff means new payroll accounts, source deductions, records of employment when they finish, and T4s the following February. Missing an ROE creates a problem for the employee, not just for you.
Capital spending in the wrong year. Buying a boat, a fit-out, a walk-in cooler or a vehicle has tax consequences that depend on when you buy it and how it’s claimed. Deciding that in August, with your accountant, is worth more than deciding it in April, after the fact.
Shediac is not standing still, either. The town recorded $105.5 million in building permits in 2023, the first time it has passed $100 million, up from $69.5 million the year before. Post-amalgamation the population is over 11,000. There is more competition arriving, and more reason to know your own numbers.
What we do for Shediac businesses
- Monthly bookkeeping: transactions categorised, accounts reconciled, books closed on time, in season and out
- Seasonal cash-flow forecasting: what you need banked in September to reach May comfortably
- HST: registration, tracking, and returns filed on schedule, with the collected tax set aside as you go
- QuickBooks Online setup and training: built for high-volume summer trading, so month-end doesn’t eat your evenings
- Payroll: seasonal hires, source deductions, records of employment, T4s
- Financial reporting: Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, cash flow, budgets
- Business registration: sole proprietorships, incorporation, NUANS name searches, annual returns
See our full services and pricing.
Starting a business in Shediac
Registration is provincial. Both sole proprietorship name registrations and New Brunswick incorporation run through the Corporate Registry at Service New Brunswick, not the Town of Shediac, and not federal unless you deliberately incorporate federally.
Sole proprietorship is quicker and cheaper, and the income lands on your personal return. Incorporation costs more up front and adds a corporate return each year, but New Brunswick’s small business rate is 2.5% on active business income up to $500,000 against a general rate of 14%, and it separates your personal assets from the business. For seasonal businesses there’s a further wrinkle worth discussing: a corporation lets you control when income comes out to you personally, which can matter a great deal when your revenue is concentrated in one quarter.
We’ll talk you through the choice, run the NUANS search, and handle the filing.
Worth knowing locally: Shediac has its own bilingual Greater Shediac Chamber of Commerce, launched in May 2013, which is unusual for a town this size and genuinely useful if you’re new here. The 2023 amalgamation also brought the Scoudouc Industrial Park inside town boundaries, so if you’re looking at commercial or industrial space, the options are wider than they were.
How we work
Most of our Shediac clients never drive to Moncton. QuickBooks Online means we work in the same live file you do. You photograph receipts on your phone, and we handle the categorising, reconciling and filing. That matters more in July than in any other month.
When you’d rather sit down together, we’re at 83 Barrieau Road in Moncton, about 26 minutes away. First consultation is free with nothing attached to it.
Common questions from Shediac business owners
My business is only open five months a year. Do I still need monthly bookkeeping?
You need the books kept current during the months you’re trading, and you need someone watching the filing deadlines year-round, because those don’t pause when you close. Plenty of our seasonal clients run a full service in season and a lighter one out of it. We’ll price it to match your actual year.
When do I have to register for HST?
Once your taxable revenue passes $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. A busy summer can take you past that in a single quarter, and if it does, your effective registration date is the day of the sale that crossed the line, so that sale is already taxable. You then have 29 days to register. This catches seasonal businesses more often than anyone else.
I hire students every summer. What do I need to have in place?
A payroll account with CRA, source deductions withheld and remitted on schedule, a record of employment issued when each person finishes, and T4s the following February. It’s routine once it’s set up, and awkward if it isn’t.
Est-ce que vous offrez vos services en français?
Oui. Nous travaillons avec nos clients en français, en anglais, en espagnol et en ukrainien. Shediac is close to two-thirds francophone, and you shouldn’t have to discuss your finances in your second language.
Let’s talk about your books
Free consultation, no obligation. Call (506) 854-6490, email accounting@startupsupportplus.com, or book a time that works for you.
Serving Shediac, Dieppe, Moncton and Greater Moncton.
Accounting Moncton
83 Barrieau Road, Moncton, NB E1G 1J5
(506) 854-6490
accounting@startupsupportplus.com
Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
English, Français, Español, Українська
Serving Shediac and Greater Moncton