How the conversation begins
It begins with a short written note, not a meeting, because a meeting before we know anything wastes your time more than ours. Four steps, in order:
- You send a business snapshot. Entities, records, current arrangement and what is coming up in the next twelve months. It takes about five minutes, and it is deliberately not a calendar link.
- Walla reads it personally. You get a reply either way, usually within two business days. If we are not the right firm, we say so and point you somewhere useful.
- A real conversation. Forty-five minutes on the business, not a sales call. You will leave it with at least one thing worth acting on whether or not you engage us.
- A written scope and fee. What is included, what is not, what we need from you and when. No package tiers, because your business does not fit one.
Nothing is owed and nothing starts until you have accepted that written scope. The snapshot goes through the contact page, and it is read whether or not you ever become a client. If the ongoing relationship is not the right fit, we say so and point you at the part that is, whether that is a project engagement, a second opinion or an article that answers the question.
Month one: take over cleanly
Month one exists to separate you from your old arrangement without anything falling on the floor. We contact your previous accountant, request the file, and handle that conversation so you do not have to. Owners dread that call far more than it deserves; it is a routine professional courtesy between firms, and it is our job, not yours.
While the file transfers, authorizations are filed with the CRA so we can see your accounts and speak for you, and prior-year working papers and closing balances are reconciled against what the CRA shows. If anything looks unfinished, a filing that never went in, a balance that does not tie, a remittance account that has drifted, we tell you plainly in month one rather than letting it surface at year end. Nothing about the takeover requires you to have a difficult conversation with anyone.
Month two: get to current
Month two is when the books stop being history and start being information. They are brought current and reconciled, every filing and remittance obligation is mapped against the calendar so nothing depends on memory, and the first month-end close runs on schedule.
At the end of it you see reporting, in most cases for the first time, and it is on the real numbers rather than on estimates that get corrected at year end. If the records arrive in worse shape than the snapshot suggested, this is where catch-up work happens; rebuilding records is normal work for us, not a crisis, and it changes the timeline honestly rather than silently.
Your side of month two is mostly access: banking feeds, source documents and answers to the questions the reconciliation raises. The faster those arrive, the sooner the close runs, which is why the written scope names what we need from you and when, not just what we deliver.
Month three: start planning
Month three is the point of the whole exercise: the first planning conversation, held on numbers that are finally trustworthy. Compensation and the salary-dividend mix, instalments, cash sitting in the corporation, and anything the next year holds, a financing, a purchase, a renovation, a shareholder change. This is the moment the relationship stops being catch-up and starts being useful, and it is why the sequence runs transition first, baseline second, planning third. Advice built on unreconciled books is guesswork with confidence.
Owners sometimes ask why planning cannot start in week one. It can, and some firms sell it that way, but a recommendation made before the balances are verified has to be remade once they are, and you pay for it twice. Ninety days is roughly what a clean handover, a reconciled baseline and one honest close take; when a hard deadline inside that window forces a decision earlier, we make it on the best available numbers and say plainly which parts are provisional.
The rhythm after the first ninety days
After the first ninety days the engagement settles into a fixed rhythm, so you always know what arrives next:
- Monthly close and reporting, on a fixed schedule
- A quarterly conversation about what the numbers are showing
- Year-end planning before the year closes, not after
- Compilation engagement and corporate filings on the annual cycle
- Ad hoc, whenever a decision is coming, at no separate charge within scope
Who you deal with does not change after the paperwork is signed: Walla, directly. Bookkeeping and preparation work is done by the team, and the thinking, the review and the advice are not delegated. You are not handed to an account manager after the sale. What that rhythm delivers month to month is described in full on the Ongoing Financial Partnership page.
What it costs to work this way
Scope is set by the business, not by a package. The ongoing relationship is priced from entities, transaction volume, employees, reporting needs and how much advisory the year requires; projects are quoted once the objective, the records and the timeline are understood. What you are buying is a finance function, so it is priced like one, as a fixed written fee rather than by the hour, and you have the number before anything begins.
A few facts move the first ninety days more than any others, so it is worth knowing them going in: how far behind the books are, how cooperative the outgoing accountant is with the file, how many entities are being taken over at once, and whether a hard date, a year end, a financing or a CRA deadline, lands inside the transition window. None of them stop the sequence; they stretch or compress it, and the written scope says which. If you are still deciding whether this firm is the right one at all, start with the Tauro approach, which sets out who we fit and who we do not.
