The Tax Tracker

Considerations & FAQs

Target Audience: The Tax Tracker, Financial Freedom Blueprint and Financial Freedom Course are designed for sole proprietorship service providers in BC. Purpose: The Tax Tracker, Financial Freedom Blueprint and Financial Freedom Course are intended to provide structure and guidelines to help service providers plan and track their financial goals and prepare for tax season confidently. PDP Credits: Unfortunately the College governing BC RMTs does not recognize business related education as an acceptable learning activity for PDP goals. Timeline: The Tax Tracker and the Financial Freedom Blueprint spreadsheets are designed to be used from January 1-December 31. A fresh spreadsheet will be available each new year – currently via repurchasing, eventually via an auto-renewal membership on Thinkific. DIY Bookkeeping: Many service providers prefer to manage their own books, so there are bookkeeping summary pages towards the end of the spreadsheet document. As you enter your monthly expenses, the spreadsheet will compile all expenses categorized the same way and give grand totals on a printer-friendly page that you can hand over to your accountant at tax time. Expense Tracking: You can enter all business expenses in the tracker. If an expense is not a full write off, or you’re unsure if it is a write off at all, you can choose to exclude it from that month’s tax planning estimator calculations – this keeps your monthly tax prep on the safe side, but still lists these purchases in your bookkeeping summaries for your accountant to see. Just make sure all partial expenses or potentially non-eligible expenses are categorized in a way that will make them stand out in the bookkeeping summaries. *This will be covered in more detail in the tutorials. Scope: The Tax Planning Estimators in the Tax Tracker and The Financial Freedom Blueprint spreadsheets create estimations using only your business revenue, the business expenses you’ve confidently included in that month’s plan, and the RRSP contributions you entered in the estimator. Other income sources or tax write-offs like medical expenses and child care costs are not taken into consideration. Tax Estimations: All GST, CPP and provincial and federal tax estimations are just that – estimates. The Tax Tracker merely points out how much GST you collected and should set aside. The Financial Freedom Blueprint does the same AND provides estimates for the Quick Method GST and Regular Method GST remittance. (In 2027, the Tax Tracker will too). *It is best practice to set all GST collected aside until you confirm what you need to remit each quarter, or at tax time if you file annually. The monthly Tax Planning Estimators do not take the Basic Personal Amount tax credits into account. Instead, they have you setting tax prep money aside from the first dollar you earn. This is what creates that ‘forced savings’ effect and will have you very comfortably prepared for tax season. Limitations: The Tax Tracker and Financial Freedom Blueprint spreadsheets are not substitutes for personalized guidance from financial professionals. Human error, misuse, or incorrect data input may affect the accuracy of the estimations. The aim is to keep you generously prepared and well organized—not to have you filing your own taxes. A bookkeeper can catch mistakes by reviewing every receipt, whereas an accountant usually works from summaries and won’t see the smaller errors. Without that professional review, you carry full responsibility with the CRA. Technical Requirements: The Tax Tracker and Financial Freedom Blueprint spreadsheets are delivered as Google Sheets, so you will need a Google/Gmail account to access them. Ownership: These organizational tools (the spreadsheets) and the supporting educational content (the Financial Freedom Course) are Heather Green’s intellectual property. Please do not share or distribute them.