Glossary
Accounting & Canadian tax, in plain language
The terms that come up when you keep real double-entry books and file a Canadian T2 — each defined in a sentence, then explained. Where it helps, we note how Comma handles it.
Canadian tax
- Capital Cost Allowance (CCA)Capital Cost Allowance is the tax deduction that lets a Canadian business write off the cost of depreciable property over time, using rates set by CCA class.
- GIFI codesGIFI (the General Index of Financial Information) is the CRA's standardized set of codes for reporting financial-statement items on a T2 return.
- Schedule 1 (T2)Schedule 1 reconciles a corporation's accounting net income to its net income for tax purposes by adding back and deducting specific items.
- Schedule 8 (CCA)Schedule 8 is the T2 schedule where a corporation calculates its Capital Cost Allowance by class for the year.
- T2 corporate tax returnThe T2 is the corporate income tax return that virtually every corporation resident in Canada must file with the CRA each year, even if it owes no tax.
Bookkeeping
- Chart of accountsThe chart of accounts is the organized list of every account a business uses to categorize its transactions.
- Double-entry accountingDouble-entry accounting records every transaction in at least two accounts, with total debits always equal to total credits.
- General ledgerThe general ledger is the complete, permanent record of every posted journal entry, organized by account.
- Journal entryA journal entry is the record of a single transaction, written as one or more debit lines and one or more credit lines that sum to equal totals.
- Opening Balance EquityOpening Balance Equity is a temporary equity account used to keep the books balanced when you first enter a business's existing balances.
- Void vs. deleteIn a real ledger you void (reverse) a posted transaction rather than delete it, so the audit trail stays complete.