The Small Picture

The Big Picture is just a disjointed mess unless all of the little details that comprise it are properly attended to as well. As a bunch of tax nerds who love what we do, we could draw a parallel to the Sistine Chapel; Michelangelo’s most famous work would have none of its Big Picture impact if it hadn’t carefully considered every detail beforehand. While our accounting products are probably not quite as much of a tourist attraction as the Sistine Chapel, we still need to get the details right.

The Small Picture consists of:

  • Getting all of the deductions and credits that apply to you
  • Recording them accurately
  • Sorting and bookkeeping your shoebox of business receipts
  • Advising business owners on what they can and can’t write off
  • Getting access to your CRA files, so we can deal with problems on your behalf
  • Meeting CRA-imposed deadlines

These things are Small Picture because they require no thought or strategy. You either can or can’t claim your trip to Vegas with your spouse as a business expense (you can’t; it’s ridiculous, but we do hear that one quite frequently). This stuff is usually just a matter of memorizing the lists and keeping your records in a complete and systematic way. But with Pi, you will get any applicable checklists emailed to you annually for all of the documentation we require; just check off the items as you get them, and you’ll be ready for your tax appointment in no time!

We stand in front of our work.

Whenever we’re not 100% sure about how to deal with certain rare situations that arise (no one knows the entire Tax Act), we will take the time to find out how to complete the work properly. It seems obvious to us that the best possible way to stay out of trouble with CRA and complete your taxes as optimally as possible involves getting it right the first time. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but we would rather delay than get it wrong.

We do our work with the highest possible level of integrity.

This isn’t always easy, because what you want and what CRA wants are usually diametrically opposed. So we focus on making sure your taxes are optimized without doing anything that would come back to haunt us in a subsequent audit. To this end, we avoid certain types of clients. If you’re uncertain about whether you’re on our Avoid List, you probably are; we aren’t going knowingly let you lie or cheat. Ever.

We stand behind our work.

When we do make a mistake that causes you a fine from CRA, we will pay the fine. To be very honest, it’s happened several times, and we just HATE paying them, but when it’s our fault we’re relatively happy to do it, because we feel quite strongly that even though no one is perfect, you shouldn’t have to pay for our mistakes.