Client money is a liability, not a deposit
The College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants requires licensees to keep money received for work not yet performed in a client account, separate from the practice's operating funds. In the books, that money is a liability owed back to the client, and it stays a liability until a stage in the retainer agreement completes and the fee is earned. Getting this wrong is not a tidiness problem: the College's Client Account Regulation comes with record-keeping duties and the power to inspect, and the record has to hold up on the day someone looks.
We keep three records in agreement at every month-end: the client account bank balance, a per-client ledger showing whose money makes up that balance, and a transfer log matching every movement into operating to a specific invoice. When the three agree, an inspection is an afternoon. When they drift, it becomes an investigation.
Where each event in a file lands in the books
An immigration file produces half a dozen distinct money events, and each one has exactly one correct home. This is the map the bookkeeping is built around:
| Event in the file | Where it lands |
|---|---|
| Retainer received before work begins | Client account; recorded as a liability, no revenue |
| Stage completed and invoiced per the retainer agreement | Fee transfers to operating; revenue is recognized |
| IRCC processing fee paid from client funds | Client-account disbursement; never income, never expense |
| Interpreter you engaged and paid yourself | Practice expense in operating, re-billed on your invoice |
| File closes with unused funds remaining | Refund from the client account; that client's ledger returns to nil |
The middle rows carry the most risk. Government fees paid on a client's behalf pass through as the client's own cost and must never inflate your revenue; a ledger that books IRCC fees as income overstates the practice and mangles the HST return in the same stroke.
Stage billing is revenue recognition, enforced by contract
Most RCIC retainers split a flat fee across milestones: a portion on signing, a portion when the application goes in, the balance at decision. The books have to mirror that split. Fees collected ahead of the work sit in deferred revenue until each stage completes, which means a month of heavy intake can look flush in the bank while almost none of it is earned. Our monthly close separates earned fees from unearned ones, so the profit line reflects files worked, not files signed.
The same discipline feeds the HST return, because tax follows the invoice. Whether a given client's fee carries 13% or is zero-rated as a supply to a non-resident is a genuinely nuanced call; we set one documented policy and cover the reasoning on our tax filing page for this niche.
Disbursements, interpreters and the paper behind them
Beyond government fees, an active practice spends on certified translations, interpreters for hearings and interviews, couriers, medical and biometric logistics, and the occasional referral arrangement. The bookkeeping question is always the same: did you incur this as the client's agent, or as your own cost of delivering the service? Agent costs run through the client account and appear on the client's statement of account; your own costs are practice expenses, recharged on your invoice with the same tax treatment as your fee.
We tag every disbursement to its file when it is captured, so each client's statement of account can be produced on demand, complete from retainer to refund. That per-file paper is exactly what a College inspection, a fee dispute or a chargeback asks for first.
A month-end built for a licensed practice
Inside End-to-End Accounting we run the books in QuickBooks Online with Dext capturing receipts, reconcile the client account against the per-client ledger every month, prepare HST returns from the invoice record, and run payroll if you employ case managers or admin staff. Year-end statements and the corporate return come out of the same clean file, with nothing rebuilt in March.
Solo licensee with modest volume? CPA Quick Support at $99 a month gives you a CPA to sanity-check your client-account routine, answer the recurring judgment calls and read CRA letters before you respond, without a full engagement. Either way, scope and fee are set in writing after a free 15-minute discovery call from our Mississauga office.
