CBai does the counterfactual
Not "you may qualify for the Quick Method". Instead: here is what you paid, here is what you would have paid, here is the difference, and here is the date after which you cannot have it.
For incorporated Canadian contractors
You didn't start your contracting business to spend your weekends wrestling with spreadsheets, missing tax deductions, or stressing over CRA compliance.
Running your own business is rewarding, but managing the finances rarely is. ContractorBooksAI takes the headache out of bookkeeping, tax compliance, and financial planning. Built by an IT project management veteran with 20 years of experience, our platform gives you the clear, automated insights you need to maximize your deductions and stay compliant. Whether you are an incorporated IT consultant, a skilled tradesperson, or a creative freelancer, we keep your back office simple so you can focus on your work.
Built in Canada, for Canadian corporations. Cancel any time.
The difference
Most bookkeeping software records what already happened.
Reminders and unread badges are table stakes. Every accounting package has them. What a general purpose ledger cannot do is model a CRA election and then work out what that election is worth against your books, specifically. That is the part we built.
Example of a notice
You would have saved $3,100 by electing the Quick Method. The election deadline is in 47 days.
CBai shows its work
Every figure opens into the transactions behind it and names the CRA rule it came from. You are the one signing the return, so you get to check it.
CBai stays quiet otherwise
A notice that fires when there is nothing to do is how you learn to ignore all of them. If your books are current and nothing is due, you hear nothing.
Your year, on one page
Every deadline and every election, in order.
Instalments, GST/HST periods, the T2, payroll remittances, and the elections with money attached. What is done, what is coming, and what closes soon. You can step forward a year to see a window before it opens, which is the only way to catch an election in time.
- DoneGST/HST Q4
- DoneT4 slips
- DoneGST/HST Q1
- Closes in 47 days Quick Method election · worth $3,100
- Due Sep 30Instalment
- Six months after year endT2 and GIFI
How CBai works
Get your books in, get your numbers out.
None of this needs an accounting background. CBai is built for someone who bills by the hour and wants the corporate paperwork to stop eating weekends.
1. Bring your transactions in
Upload bank and credit card statements as PDFs, the same files your bank already gives you. CBai shows you which date ranges are covered and where the gaps are, so you are never guessing whether a quarter is complete.
2. CBai categorises, and it learns
Transactions are classified against a Canadian merchant index and your own history. Correct something once and it remembers the vendor, the category and the business use percentage.
3. Take the numbers to CRA
Your GST/HST return in the NETFILE layout, your T2 figures and GIFI export, your T4 and T5 slips, and what you can safely pay yourself without stranding the corporation on tax day.
What CBai does
- GST/HST returns, regular method and Quick Method, laid out the way CRA's NETFILE form asks for them
- Corporate tax figures and a GIFI export for your T2
- T4 and T5 slips for a small corporation
- Safe to Spend, so you know what is genuinely yours and what is CRA's
- Expense reports for business costs you paid personally, settled against your shareholder loan
- Deadline and election notices, with the dollar figure attached
- Payroll Planner, comparing salary, dividends and a mix against what each leaves you
- Notifications Timeline, showing what is due and what is still open across the year
What CBai does not do, so nothing surprises you later
- CBai does not transmit anything to CRA for you. You file, using the figures and forms CBai prepares
- CBai is not a CPA and does not give tax advice. CBai is software that shows its arithmetic
- CBai does not do your personal taxes. This is your corporation's books, not your T1
Pricing
One plan. Everything in it.
No feature tiers, no per-seat pricing, and no upsell to get your own numbers back out. One corporation, everything the product does.
Free trial
$0/ 7 days
No card · nothing to cancel
One bank statement, parsed and categorised in full. See exactly how well CBai reads your bank's format before you pay for anything.
Start free trialMonthly
$69/ month
$828 over a year
One business bank statement each month, and every tax output: GST/HST returns, the T2 package, T4 and T5 slips.
Start monthlySave $240
Annual
$588/ year
Works out to $49/month · 29% less
Subscription for one year, 12 monthly bank statements to complete your fiscal year financial picture.
Start annualAll prices in Canadian dollars, plus GST/HST at your province's rate.
Before you start, here is exactly what happens
- The free trial runs 7 days and includes one full bank statement, processed the whole way through to your figures.
- No payment card is required and no card is stored. Nothing is charged at any point during the trial.
- The trial does not turn into a paid plan. Because no card is taken, nothing can be billed. After 7 days your account becomes read only: your records stay available and exportable, and new imports need a subscription.
- There is nothing to cancel. If you decide not to subscribe you simply stop, and you are never charged. Choosing a plan later is in the app under Account, then Subscription.
- Joining partway through a fiscal year? The months before you subscribed carry a catch up charge of $69 each, the same as the monthly price. Switching to annual instead is $588 and covers the whole fiscal year, including the months already behind you, with no catch up charge on top. You are quoted both figures before you agree to anything. Those earlier months cannot be processed until one of them is paid, because every figure we produce depends on the year being complete.
The full terms are in the terms of service.
Who CBai is for
Small Canadian corporations that file their own returns.
A good fit
You are incorporated in Canada, somewhere between one and five people. You bill clients, you pay yourself, and you would rather understand your own numbers than hand a shoebox to somebody in April. IT contractors, consultants, developers, project managers and business analysts are the audience CBai was designed around, and it suits most small corporations.
Not a fit yet
You are a sole proprietor without a corporation, you want somebody to file on your behalf, you carry inventory, or you run a payroll bigger than a handful of people. Those all need things CBai does not do, and it is cheaper for both of us to say so here.
Questions
The things people actually ask.
Do you file my return with CRA?
No. The system prepares your GST/HST return in CRA's NETFILE layout, your T2 figures and a GIFI export, and your slips.
Am I able to file all my returns myself?
Yes, you can file all returns yourself. One thing to know: for tax years starting after 2023, CRA requires almost all corporations to file their T2 electronically, and paper filing when you were required to file electronically carries a $1,000 penalty. Your T2 can be filed through tax software using the figures ContractorBooksAI prepares, for around $60.
Which provinces does CBai cover?
All provinces except Quebec and Manitoba, and all three territories. Once registration has completed for Quebec and Manitoba, CBai will cover all of Canada.
How is CBai different from QuickBooks?
QuickBooks and the tools like it are built to serve everyone from a small business to a large corporation, so they cover complex bookkeeping you will never need and take real work to maintain. What they do not do is tell you, in your own numbers, where you are leaving money on the table or when a CRA deadline is about to cost you. This is built for one situation only: a one-person Canadian corporation. CBai models the elections and credits that apply to you, works out what each is worth against your actual books, and tells you before the window shuts.
What happens to my data if I cancel?
Your data stays yours and your account keeps its records. The computed outputs, meaning the T2 figures, the GIFI export, the return layouts and the slips, are part of the subscription and stop being available when it lapses. That is stated plainly in the terms rather than left to be discovered at renewal.
Can I bring in a fiscal year that is already underway?
Yes, and it is the normal case rather than an exception. Most people find us partway through a year.
Upload the earlier statements and we will process them. Months before your subscription started carry a catch up charge of $69 each, which is simply the monthly price. On monthly, a fiscal year therefore costs $828 however late you join.
Switching to annual is the cheaper route, and we say so at the moment you are asked. It is $588 and covers the whole fiscal year, including the months already behind you, so there is no catch up charge on top. That saves $240 over staying monthly, and you can go back to monthly when the year is up.
You are quoted the exact figure in dollars before you agree to anything, and until it is paid we will not process statements from before you subscribed. That is not a feature we are holding back: a fiscal year with months missing cannot produce a correct GST/HST return or T2 figure, so a partial year would give you numbers that look finished and are not.
We only go back to the start of your current fiscal year. Years you have already filed are closed, and we do not reopen them.
Get in touch
Questions before you start?
I am Michael, and I built this because running the financial side of my own one person corporation turned out to be far harder than it needed to be. If something here does not fit your situation, tell me. I would much rather hear it now than have you find out after paying.
Email
support@contractorbooksai.com
LinkedIn
Michael Morfee