Purpose-built software
Build the tools Canadian small businesses actually need instead of adding features just to match enterprise accounting products.
Our story
Built because the paperwork should not take over your life.
NorthBooks started as a personal fix for a real Canadian small-business problem: keeping books organized through the year so tax time is less painful.
Founder story
I built NorthBooks because I needed it.
I am Scott Sutherland, a Canadian web developer. I started my business in 2019, eventually incorporated, and learned very quickly that bookkeeping and tax preparation can consume a lot of your time.
Suddenly I was juggling invoices, expenses, receipts, GST/HST, payroll-related tasks, CRA deadlines, and year-end prep on top of client work. I tried existing tools and worked with accounting help, but the cost and manual cleanup still felt heavier than it should.
I built NorthBooks for my own business first. Then I showed it to other Canadian freelancers, consultants, and small business owners. They had the same problem: they did not want to become bookkeepers, they just wanted organized records and less tax-time stress.
That is still the mission. NorthBooks helps you stay organized throughout the year so your accountant has better information to work with when filing season arrives.
Built around Canadian business
Why focus on Canada?
Canadian small business bookkeeping has its own reality: GST/HST handling, CRA timelines, and year-end workflows that do not map cleanly to software built for another tax system. NorthBooks is built around those workflows from the start.
Depending on your business, that can include GST/HST tracking, payroll-related records, T2 and T1 prep support, T4/T4A/T5 workflows, and accountant-ready exports such as GIFI, T2 XML, CSV, and PDF. Not every workflow applies to every business, and that is exactly why flexibility matters.
Financial data is hosted in Canadian data centres, with PIPEDA-aware privacy posture.
What I believe
Your data is yours
NorthBooks helps you manage your records. It does not exist to turn your bookkeeping data into an ad product.
Accountants are partners
NorthBooks is built to make accountant handoff easier, not to replace professional tax advice or filing support.
Useful beats complicated
Most business owners want to know what came in, what went out, what is due, and what needs attention. That is the focus.
Small team. Focused product.
NorthBooks is independently built. That means product decisions can stay close to real customer problems instead of enterprise checklists. If a feature does not help Canadian small businesses run cleaner books, it does not ship.
What NorthBooks is, and what it is not
NorthBooks is
- Bookkeeping software for Canadian small businesses
- Built for freelancers, consultants, and owner-operated businesses
- Designed to keep income, expenses, invoices, receipts, and GST/HST organized all year
- Helpful for payroll, mileage, deadlines, and year-end prep workflows
- Made to give your accountant cleaner information and faster handoff
NorthBooks is not
- A replacement for your accountant
- CRA tax filing software
- Professional tax or legal advice
- Enterprise accounting software for large teams
- Designed only for corporations (incorporated businesses are one part of the audience)
What's next
NorthBooks is still actively being built, based on what Canadian small-business owners ask for most. Current roadmap themes include faster bookkeeping workflows, stronger reporting/export handoff, and practical integration paths for where small businesses already work.
Planned integration targets currently include Shopify, eBay, Stripe, Helcim, and Clover in future tiers as the product evolves.
If there is a workflow eating your time, send me a note. Customer feedback directly shapes what gets built next.
Built for your business. Built in Canada.
Spend less time managing the books and more time running your business. Start free and see if NorthBooks makes day-to-day bookkeeping easier.
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