Every order is a small manufacturing run
The docket is the unit of profit in this trade, so it is the unit our bookkeeping is built around. Each job carries a cost record that mirrors its estimate: media at what the run actually pulled off the roll, including setup waste; ink at coverage rather than a guess; press, plotter and CNC hours at a loaded machine rate that carries depreciation, the service contract and the operator's full cost; finishing and weeding labour; and outsourced trade work, the flatbed time bought from another shop or the wrap installer brought in for a day. When actuals sit beside the quote while the job is still warm, a mispriced product line shows up in weeks instead of at year-end.
Design hours go on the docket too, billed or not. Whether to charge them separately or fold them into the unit price is a pricing call, and our print shop CFO page treats that decision properly; the books' job is making sure the hours exist somewhere first, because you cannot price what you never measured.
If the shop runs on an MIS such as DocketManager, shopVOX or Printavo, we map its invoicing and job data into QuickBooks Online instead of re-keying it, and Dext captures the supplier invoices behind every input tax credit. The MIS knows the job; the books must agree with it to the dollar.
Substrate is inventory, and waste is a number
Rolls and sheets are the largest cost on the floor and the loosest figure in most shops' books. We put a plain discipline around them: purchases coded to jobs where the MIS supports it, part-rolls and sheet stock counted on a cycle instead of guessed once a year, and a remake log with a reason code so reprints stop hiding inside cost of goods sold. Waste is not a character flaw, it is a cost line; the only unmanageable version is the untracked one.
| Where margin leaks | What the books should show |
|---|---|
| Setup and makeready waste | Built into the machine-hour rate, reviewed when media prices move |
| Remakes and reprints | A remake log with reason codes and a monthly cost total |
| Part-rolls and offcuts | Counted as usable stock on a cycle, not written off by neglect |
| Rush freight on media | Coded to the job that caused it, not buried in overhead |
| Obsolete or off-spec media | Written down deliberately, once a year, with a number attached |
Year-end raises the stakes: the substrate count and the jobs sitting half-finished on the floor set closing inventory and work in progress, and those set taxable income. A shop that guesses its count is guessing its tax return.
Production, installs and design behave differently in the books
Shop production is the simple stream: taxable at 13% HST, invoiced on delivery, paid at pickup or on account. Install revenue is another animal. Site work brings boom-lift rentals, municipal sign permits billed through to the client, crews on other people's property, and, when the sign package sits inside a larger construction project, progress billing with a 10 percent holdback under Ontario's Construction Act and a general contractor wanting your WSIB clearance certificate before anyone goes up. We keep the install stream and its direct costs separate so you can see whether site work actually covers the trucks, the lifts and the crew, and we keep holdback receivables out of the ordinary aging so money that is contractually late is not chased as if it were overdue.
The customer mix runs from walk-in business cards to franchise rollouts and GC packages, so receivables get aged by segment; a blended AR-days figure across that mix tells you nothing. The credit-policy and cash-forecast side of that mix is CFO territory, and the job-level books built here are what make it possible.
What lands on your desk each month
End-to-End Accounting puts bookkeeping, payroll, financial reporting and tax filing under one roof. Press operators, finishers and installers are paid with source deductions remitted on time, HST is filed at 13% with input tax credits captured on media, ink, service contracts and equipment, and the monthly statement shows margin by stream and by job. At year-end the same file flows straight into the T2 through Corporate Tax Filing, with no clean-up bill and no January archaeology. We work with shops across Mississauga and the GTA, and every engagement starts with a free 15-minute discovery call and a written quote, never an hourly surprise.
