Software for Corporate and Personal

by Benjamin
(Vancouver, BC, Canada)

I am looking for an accounting & bookkeeping solution to manage both my personal and corporate books. To my surprise it seems harder than I thought to find an application or cloud based service which can do the following:

- Track my personal and business expenses separately in one program
- Sync with my banks to import data
- Separate/organize expenses which are a mix of business and personal made
with one credit card
- Maintain a double-entry accounting system
- Handle both Canadian and US currency (this one isn’t mandatory, but
definitely ideal)

The following are features that I would either like the service to provide or at least be able to link to an application which can handle these:

- Scan receipts and import data from smartphones or desktop scanners
- Import email receipts via email forward or ideally through a bulk import
of .eml files
- Help track business and personal Canadian tax issues including GST
collections from clients, etc.

Hey Benjamin,

In my humble opinion, you don't want software that can do both. You should be keeping your business transactions totally separate from your personal transactions especially since you are incorporated and your incorporated company has a separate legal identity.

Here is an excerpt from my CCPC chat:

"STOP ... before you write yourself that cheque or take that cash ...

There are very specific rules when a corporation loans money to its shareholders who own more than 10% of the shares and their family members. YOU need to be careful that money you remove from the company is not at risk to be taxable.

Unlike a sole proprietor, an owner / manager does NOT have free access to the company's funds and/or assets. Why? The corporation has its own legal identity that is separate from the owner / manager's identity.

What does this mean to YOU? All titles to assets MUST be held in the corporation's name, not the owner / manager's name. If an asset is registered in the owner's name, it is a personal asset regardless if the funds to purchase were removed from the corporation."

Just as an example, you should have two credit cards - one for your personal transactions and another dedicated solely to your business transactions. The same goes for your bank accounts.

There are a lot of software options out there that are excellent and affordable for small businesses. My personal favorite is QuickBooks.

For personal finances, most of the major banks in Canada have free personal financial tracking software tied directly to your accounts. Mint and Quicken handle personal transactions as well as investment portfolios. Investment tracking is important for tax purposes. I don't believe any business accounting software handles tracking investments.

Benjamin, I think you need to rethink your criteria. I do not recommend mixing business and personal. It never becomes more evident than while you are in the middle of an audit. Why would you want to invite the auditor into your personal life?