Assurance, tax and advisory for the people actually running the organization.
CJ LLP is a partner-led firm serving private companies and not-for-profit organizations.
Every operator wants the same three things.
More money, less risk, and more time. We take the time to understand your business, and then we go to work on all three.
EBITDA and earnings don’t help you sleep at night — cash flow does.
We understand the business behind the financial statements — because we’ve been on both sides of the table.
CJ LLP is a partner-led firm. The partner who understands your file stays close to it, and brings genuine technical depth alongside something rarer: an instinct for what actually matters to the person whose name is on the door.
That perspective is the firm’s foundation, and it shapes how we approach every engagement — assurance, tax, and advisory alike.
Organizations led by people accountable for them.
Private companies
Owners, investors and operators who carry the real weight of the business — established, scaling, transitioning or under pressure.
Not-for-profit organizations
Charities and not-for-profits whose distinct accounting, funder-reporting and governance demands call for genuine specialist understanding — not a commercial approach borrowed and adapted.
Regulated reporting entities
Businesses operating under FINTRAC and other regulatory regimes — where registration, reporting, examinations and audit-ready records are conditions of doing business, and the deadlines are set by the regulator, not the calendar.
Three disciplines. One standard of judgment.
To an owner, operator or investor — the statements, the tax plan and the financing were never three separate files. They’re one decision. We work them that way.
Accounting & Assurance
Audits, reviews and compilations that hold up to any lender, funder, investor or regulator.
- Financial statement audits
- Review & compilation engagements
- Not-for-profit & funder reporting
- Lender & regulatory reporting
Tax
Compliance and planning across corporate, owner-manager, estate and trust mandates, backed by genuine tax-law depth.
- Corporate tax compliance & planning
- Owner-manager & corporate planning
- Trusts, estates & intergenerational transfer
- Reorganizations, structuring & CRA matters
Advisory
Counsel for the decisions that don’t fit neatly into a return or a statement, across the full arc of a business.
- Sell-side transaction advisory
- Cash flow & working capital optimization
- Turnaround & operational restructuring
- Special situations: unions, distributorships & JV negotiations
In these businesses, the financials decide what’s possible — not just what happened.
Construction & trades
Whether you run jobs as a general, a subtrade or a service shop, the accounting is unforgiving — revenue recognized on percentage-of-completion, over- and under-billings swinging the P&L, holdbacks receivable and payable parked on the balance sheet, and a statutory 10% that ties up cash for months. We get the WIP and the contract accounting right so the statements your bank, surety or customer relies on actually hold, and structure the tax so a strong year doesn’t cost you the cash — or the capacity — to take the next job. The union remittances stay clean, and the benefit-plan payroll audits stay uneventful.
Private equity & search funds
Whether you’re a fund, an independent sponsor or a searcher closing a first acquisition, the deal gets underwritten on the numbers — normalized EBITDA, the working-capital peg, and a structure that protects the return at exit. Then the real work starts: proving the diligence out against reality, keeping the integration plan on schedule, and giving the fund and its investors genuine visibility — clean monthly numbers, covenant calculations that never surprise the lender, and statements that are diligence-ready when the next raise, or the exit, comes.
FINTRAC-regulated entities
Money services businesses and other reporting entities carry anti-money-laundering obligations most accountants never encounter — FINTRAC examinations, reporting regimes, and assurance that has to withstand a regulator’s scrutiny. We keep the audit, the controls reporting and the tax structuring tight enough that an examination is a formality, not a fire drill.
Technology & software
Annual contracts hit the bank on day one but earn out over twelve months, so revenue recognition and deferred revenue decide whether your ARR is real or borrowed against tomorrow. We get the revenue recognition, the deferred-revenue schedules and the audit your investors or acquirer will demand right, land the SR&ED claim you’ve earned, and keep burn and runway honest — so the raise rests on numbers that hold. And if a sale is ever in the plan, we get the house in order early — acquirers discount every dollar of ARR they can’t verify.
Wholesale & distribution
Your profit is locked in inventory and receivables long before it reaches the bank, and the lender margins both to set your borrowing base. We get the inventory valuation, the obsolescence reserves and the cut-off right so the statements behind your borrowing-base certificate hold up, and keep the tax efficient without starving the line. Tighten the turns and that same facility funds the next container — not last quarter’s dead stock.
Manufacturing & industrial
Costing a single job is the easy part; getting overhead absorption, inventory and WIP right across the plant is what makes the statements true — and what your bank and equipment lenders lean on. We handle the cost accounting and the capital-asset calls, claim the CCA and any SR&ED you’ve earned, and structure the financing so the next machine adds capacity instead of choking working capital.
Real estate & development
The return is built in the structure and the tax — how the entities are stacked, whether a sale is income or capital, how HST and CCA recapture land, and when the refinance is timed. For developers, we produce the cost reports and draw-ready financials your lender depends on. For multi-res owners, statements where the rent roll and NOI hold up to the appraiser and the DSCR covenant. For hotel owners, reporting that connects REVPAR to GOP, keeps the FF&E reserve honest, and plans the cash for the PIP your flag will eventually hand you. Done early it compounds in your favour for a decade; bolted on later, it never works as hard.
Transportation & logistics
Margins are thin and the assets depreciate while you sleep, so the truth lives in depreciation, lease-versus-buy and the true cost-per-mile — not the top line. We get the asset accounting and the CCA right, structure the equipment financing for both tax and cash, and keep the statements your lenders rely on clean. Get it right and a low-margin business throws off real, bankable cash.
Professional practices
Medical, dental, legal, engineering or advisory — whatever the letters after the name, a practice is a business, and it runs on the same unforgiving numbers: WIP and lockup, realization on the billings, the leverage of the team, and whether the draws are funded by profit or by the line of credit. We keep the practice accounting tight and the compensation structured right — the salary-dividend mix, the partner buy-ins and buy-outs — and produce financials a bank or an incoming partner will trust. And when the practice changes hands, the value was built years earlier, in how it was run.
Food, beverage & hospitality
Full tables and profit aren’t the same thing — tight margins, payroll every two weeks and sales-tax remittances can drain cash long before the P&L flinches. We get the cash controls, the POS reconciliations and the inventory right, keep HST and payroll source deductions clean with the CRA, and produce statements a landlord, franchisor or lender will accept. Watch the cash, not just the covers, and a good concept becomes a business you can expand.
Not-for-profit
Restricted funds, deferred contributions, and the choice between the deferral and restricted-fund methods — this is accounting that exists nowhere else, and a funder who reads the audit closely will catch it if it’s wrong. We handle the fund accounting and the audit your funders require, keep the T3010 and the HST rebates clean, and report in a way the board and the grantor trust. Done right, the reporting is what keeps the funding flowing.
And sometimes the assurance work isn’t optional.
A statute, a regulator or a funder sets the requirement — sometimes an audit, sometimes a review — and the deadline. The reader on the other end is trained to find what’s wrong. We deliver assurance built for that reader, on the statutory clock.
FINTRAC reporting entities
examinations & compliance-attuned assuranceNot-for-profits & charities
ONCA audit & review thresholdsChildcare operators
CWELCC & municipal funding auditsTravel agencies & wholesalers
TICO filings & trust reportingMortgage administrators & MICs
FSRA audited filingsCareer colleges
audited statements & trustLet’s talk about your organization.
Start with a conversation.
Suite 200, 120 East Beaver Creek Road · Richmond Hill, Ontario · L4B 4V1