Monthly price (CAD)
- Spreadsheet
- Free, plus hours of your time
- NorthOS
- $12 CAD
Alternatives
Your spreadsheet got you started. It will not get you through tax season.
A spreadsheet is free, flexible, and yours. But it does not track the GST/HST $30,000 threshold, map your expenses to the T2125, or tell you when a formula broke three months ago and took your totals with it. NorthOS is built around the parts of Canadian self-employment a spreadsheet leaves entirely to you.
What a spreadsheet is genuinely good at
A spreadsheet is the honest first tool. It is free, you already know how to use it, and it bends to whatever shape your business is in. For your first few months of self-employment, when you have a dozen transactions and no GST number, a single sheet with dates, amounts, and categories is a perfectly reasonable set of books.
It is also completely yours. No subscription, no account, no vendor deciding to change a feature. You can see every number and every formula, and you can hand the file to an accountant in one attachment.
None of that changes because you outgrow it. It just stops being enough on its own once the Canadian tax machinery gets involved, and that happens sooner than most people expect.
Where a spreadsheet falls short for a Canadian sole proprietor
A spreadsheet stores numbers. It does not understand Canadian sole-proprietor tax. The gap shows up in five specific places.
The $30,000 GST/HST threshold is not watching itself. The small-supplier threshold is measured over a rolling four-quarter window, which is genuinely awkward to model in a spreadsheet. So most people do not, and they discover they crossed it after the fact. Then they owe GST on sales where they never charged it.
The T2125 is not the data model. A spreadsheet has whatever columns you gave it. At tax time you (or your accountant) still have to map those columns onto the CRA T2125 lines. NorthOS categorizes every expense to its T2125 line as you enter it, so the year-end export is already in the shape the CRA wants.
Errors are invisible until they cost you. A formula that stops covering new rows, a total that points at the wrong range, a decimal in the wrong place. A spreadsheet will not tell you. You find out when the numbers do not match your bank, usually in April. NorthOS validates your totals as you go.
Receipts and bank data are all manual. Every transaction is a copy and paste from your bank, and every receipt is a photo you have to remember to file somewhere. NorthOS connects to your bank feed and lets you scan and attach receipts through North AI, so the record and the receipt live together.
The Quick Method is a project. Electing the CRA Quick Method means looking up your province rate, applying the 1% credit, and handling tax-included math by hand. NorthOS has a built-in Quick Method calculator for all 13 provinces and territories.
Spreadsheet vs. NorthOS
| Feature | Spreadsheet | NorthOS |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price (CAD) | Free, plus hours of your time | $12 CAD |
| Built for | Whatever you build it to be | Canadian sole proprietors and side hustlers |
| GST/HST $30k threshold tracker | A formula you build and maintain | Automatic, rolling four-quarter window |
| T2125 line-by-line expense mapping | Columns you set up by hand | Built into every category |
| GST/HST Quick Method calculator | Look up the rates yourself | All 13 provinces and territories |
| Provincial sales tax (PST) for BC, SK, MB | Manual | Recognized by province |
| Bank transaction import | Copy and paste | Connected bank feed |
| Receipt capture | None | Scan and attach, via North AI |
| Error checking | None. A broken formula stays broken | Totals validated as you go |
| Audit trail | Whoever edited the cell last | Every change recorded |
| AI bookkeeping assistant | No | North AI (write-capable) |
Built for
- Spreadsheet
- Whatever you build it to be
- NorthOS
- Canadian sole proprietors and side hustlers
GST/HST $30k threshold tracker
- Spreadsheet
- A formula you build and maintain
- NorthOS
- Automatic, rolling four-quarter window
T2125 line-by-line expense mapping
- Spreadsheet
- Columns you set up by hand
- NorthOS
- Built into every category
GST/HST Quick Method calculator
- Spreadsheet
- Look up the rates yourself
- NorthOS
- All 13 provinces and territories
Provincial sales tax (PST) for BC, SK, MB
- Spreadsheet
- Manual
- NorthOS
- Recognized by province
Bank transaction import
- Spreadsheet
- Copy and paste
- NorthOS
- Connected bank feed
Receipt capture
- Spreadsheet
- None
- NorthOS
- Scan and attach, via North AI
Error checking
- Spreadsheet
- None. A broken formula stays broken
- NorthOS
- Totals validated as you go
Audit trail
- Spreadsheet
- Whoever edited the cell last
- NorthOS
- Every change recorded
AI bookkeeping assistant
- Spreadsheet
- No
- NorthOS
- North AI (write-capable)
When a spreadsheet is still the right call
A spreadsheet is not a mistake. There are real situations where it is the right amount of tool.
If you have a small number of transactions a month, your revenue is comfortably under the $30,000 GST threshold, and you have no plans to register voluntarily, a clean sheet does the job.
If your income is genuinely a hobby or a one-off, and you are only tracking enough to report it on your T1, the overhead of any software is more than you need.
NorthOS becomes the better tool the moment your bookkeeping stops being simple: when you are near the GST threshold, when your expenses need to land on the right T2125 lines, or when tax season has started to eat real time. That is the line most side hustles cross in their first year or two.
What you get the day you leave the spreadsheet
The GST threshold is a number you can see.
NorthOS shows your rolling four-quarter revenue against the $30,000 registration threshold on the dashboard. You register before you cross, not after.
The T2125 is the data model, not a year-end chore.
Every expense lands on a specific CRA line as you enter it. Year end becomes an export instead of a reconciliation.
No more silent math.
Totals are validated as you go, and every change is recorded. A number that looks wrong has a history you can check.
An AI assistant that does the entry.
North AI imports transactions, logs receipts, and answers tax questions through a normal chat. It writes to your books, not just reads them.
“What about my spreadsheet?”
Your spreadsheet is not wasted work. Export it to CSV and NorthOS can take those transactions as the starting point for your books, with categories mapped to T2125 lines during import.
The honest part: you will spend a little time lining up your columns the first time. After that, the categorization happens as you enter each transaction, and the running totals, the GST threshold, and the T2125 export maintain themselves. It is the year-end work you were going to do anyway, done once, up front.
If you want a hand getting your historical spreadsheet into NorthOS, reach out at hello@northos.ca.
Frequently asked questions
Can I just use a spreadsheet for my sole proprietor bookkeeping?
Yes, and plenty of people start there. A spreadsheet is fine when you have a handful of transactions a month and you are well under the GST/HST registration threshold. The trouble starts when GST tracking, T2125 categories, and receipt records all have to live in the same file and stay correct for six years. That is the point where the spreadsheet becomes the job instead of the tool.
Does the CRA accept spreadsheet records?
Yes. The CRA accepts any records that are complete, accurate, and kept for six years, and a spreadsheet can meet that bar. The risk is not the file format. It is human error: a mistyped amount, a formula that stopped covering the new rows, or a receipt you meant to save and did not. NorthOS keeps the same records with the math and the audit trail handled for you.
Does a spreadsheet track the GST/HST $30,000 threshold?
Only if you build and maintain the formula yourself, and remember to look at it. The $30,000 small-supplier threshold is measured on a rolling four-quarter basis, which is awkward to model by hand. Most sole proprietors find out they crossed it after the fact, then owe GST they never charged their clients. NorthOS tracks that running total and flags it before you cross.
How do I move my spreadsheet into NorthOS?
Export your spreadsheet to CSV and import it. NorthOS takes the transactions as the starting point for your books and maps them to T2125 lines during import. There is no rebuild of formulas, and going forward the categorization happens as you enter each transaction.
Can a spreadsheet do the GST/HST Quick Method?
You can build it, but you have to look up your province rate, apply the 1% credit on the first $30,000 of eligible supplies, and handle the tax-included math yourself. It is easy to get wrong by hand. NorthOS has a built-in Quick Method calculator for all 13 provinces and territories.
Is NorthOS worth $12 a month over a free spreadsheet?
If your bookkeeping is mostly data entry and your revenue is small, a free spreadsheet is genuinely fine. NorthOS earns the $12 when your tax season is harder than your data entry: tracking the GST threshold, keeping T2125-ready expense records, remitting the right sales tax, and not losing an afternoon to a broken formula in April.
Is NorthOS Canadian?
Yes. NorthOS is built by Apex North Enterprises in Ontario, hosted in Canada, and designed specifically for Canadian sole proprietors and side hustlers. It handles T2125 compliance, the GST/HST registration threshold, and marketplace facilitator tax rules out of the box, and it recognizes provincial sales tax (PST) for BC, SK, and MB.
Bookkeeping built around how Canadians actually file.
NorthOS is bookkeeping and tax compliance for Canadian sole proprietors and side hustlers. T2125 expense mapping, GST/HST threshold tracking, Quick Method remittance, and provincial sales tax for BC, SK, and MB. $12 CAD a month.