COVID-19

March 24, 2020

Accountants & essential workplaces

Accountants have been included in the list of essential workplaces to remain open under the Ontario government announcement yesterday evening.

As a firm our preference remains to communicate with you by email, phone and ZOOM video calls where possible. We do realize that on a practical level there are certain situations where information will be required to be dropped off at our offices.

Coordinating information drop off

The landlord of our commercial plaza location has temporarily locked all external doors to the plaza until notified otherwise to open them. Should you absolutely need to drop off information to us you will need to coordinate a drop off time. In addition, please call us when you arrive to indicate you are here at 705 735 9950 ex 221. This allows our staff to work effectively on behalf of all our clients during the day.

Maintaining COVID protocols

Our staff will only be allowed to meet with you if your responses are NO to ALL the following four questions:

1.Do you have a fever and/or cough or difficulty breathing?

2.Have you travelled to impacted areas in the past 14 days?

3.Have you been in contact with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19?

4.Have you been in close contact with someone who has an acute respiratory condition?

We continue to strictly observe the practice of PHYSICAL social distancing (6 feet of separation) with all our clients and request that you do the same with our staff.

When we meet with you at the door, we will discuss how we will take your information from you.

As a firm we appreciate your understanding, patience and cooperation as we all work through these unique times together.

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 19, 2020

Additional Safety Measures

Over the past few days our staff have transitioned to working remotely from home and will continue to do so until such time as the current situation is reassessed.

The objective in moving to a work at home arrangement is to support health and safety through proactive and timely social distancing policies.

Until such time as we move back to our physical offices on Victoria Street, we will only be able to send and receive communications by email, phone and ZOOM video calls where possible. Please do not mail, courier or attempt to drop off paper communications as they will not be received.

This arrangement may result in delays in our ability to respond to your communications.

We ask for your patience and cooperation as we adjust our operations to manage the dangers to the community posed by COVID-19 yet strive to deliver quality customer service to you our clients.

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 13, 2020

Initial Safety Precautions

Due to the ongoing developments of COVID-19, the high volume of traffic during tax season, and in order to keep our staff safe and healthy our firm has implemented a mandatory screening process in place with those visiting with us prior to entry into our offices.

There are four questions below which you need to read and provide a YES or NO response from you to us.

If you have NO answers to all the four questions, please enter and complete our visitor registry where you will indicate your name, to circle your responses and sign in.

IF you answer YES to any of the questions below YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER OUR OFFICES.

IF you are UNSURE for any reason, YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER OUR OFFICES - please contact a health professional to discuss your situation.

Here are the four questions you will have to answer YES or NO to:

1. Do you have a fever and/or cough or difficulty breathing?
2. Have you travelled to impacted areas in the past 14 days?
3. Have you been in contact with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19?
4. Have you been in close contact with someone who has an acute respiratory condition?

As a firm we understand that your accounting and tax matters are of ongoing importance. However, if you are at risk, please arrange to contact our office by phone or email to discuss your situation. We will be happy to discuss how we can assist you using alternative methods to deal with your situation.

On behalf of all of us, thank you for your understanding and cooperation, we greatly appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 23, 2020

We are adjusting our workplace practices to ensure the safety of our staff and clients and minimize the spread of COVID-19.

We wanted to let you know about changes we’ve implemented to continue to deliver quality service to you on a practical level.

Personal tax return preparation

We have set up remote work locations at home from which we can securely dial into our office to work on your return(s).

We encourage you to utilize our secure ShareFile system to upload your documents to us - to do so, Click here to upload your files.

Our staff will receive notification of your uploaded documents & will prepare your return(s).

As would be the case in other years, you could get an email or phone call from your preparer requesting clarification or additional information about your return.

Finalization & approval

Once your return has been prepared & reviewed, you will receive an email or phone call notifying you that your return(s) are complete.

We will require your approval to EFILE your return(s) on your behalf & will discuss this with you at that time.

Payment, EFILING and pick up of returns

We will email you our invoice for services rendered – our preferred payment method at this time is by E-Transfer – you can send it along to mike@kostrich.ca

Once we have received your payment, we will EFILE your return(s) to CRA.

When our admin team is back in the office they will prepare your personal tax return package & call you when it is ready for pick up.

Should you require a copy of your tax return(s) in advance please let us know and we can send along a PDF of your return(s) to you via email.

As a firm we appreciate your patience and cooperation as we all work together through these unique times.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

On behalf of all of us - stay safe and be well!

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 23, 2020

At this time we are encouraging all clients to practice physical social distancing and not come in person to our office location unless absolutely necessary to do so.

Although we are adjusting our workplace practices to ensure the safety of our staff and clients and minimize the spread of COVID-19 we are still here to serve you.

So we wanted to let you know about changes we’ve implemented to continue to deliver quality service to you on a practical level.

Corporate year end preparation

We have set up remote work locations at home from which we can securely dial into our office to work on your corporate year ends.

As has been the case in prior years:

• we encourage you to utilize our secure ShareFile system to upload your documents to us (you can email us to for assistance on this)
• we will communicate with you by email, phone call or ZOOM video call to clarify or request additional information from you on certain items.

Draft review & final approval

When your corporate year ends have been prepared - a draft of the financial statement, adjusting entries, trial balance & other relevant schedules will be sent as a PDF for you to review.

Once you’ve reviewed this information you can schedule a ZOOM video call or phone call to discuss the drafts with any questions you may have.

Should you approve of what we have provided you, simply email us to confirm your approval to finalize things on your behalf.

Payment for services, EFILING and pick up of corporate year end packages

Upon approval, we will email you our invoice for services rendered – our preferred payment method at this time is by E-Transfer – you can send it along to mike@kostrich.ca

Once we have received your payment, we will EFILE your corporate tax return to CRA.

When our admin team is back in the office they will prepare your corporate year end package & call you when it is ready for pick up.

Should you require a copy of your financial statement or corporate tax return in advance please let us know and we can send along a PDF of them to you via email.

As a firm we appreciate your patience and cooperation as we all work together through these unique times.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

On behalf of all of us - stay safe and be well!

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 23, 2020

At this time, we are encouraging all clients to practice physical social distancing and not come in person to our office location unless necessary to do so.

We are adjusting our workplace practices to ensure the safety of our staff and clients and minimize the spread of COVID-19 so we wanted to let you know about changes we’ve implemented to continue to deliver quality service to you on a practical level.

Bookkeeping, Payroll & HST processing

We have set up remote work locations at home from which we can securely dial into our office to work on your accounting needs.

We encourage you to utilize our secure ShareFile system to upload your documents to us (you can email us to for assistance on this)

You can continue to communicate with our staff via email, phone call and/or ZOOM video call when necessary to:

• ·Coordinate transfer of documents
• ·Process payrolls, prepare source deduction remittances & filings
• ·Prepare HST remittance & filings

Coordinating information drop off (if necessary)

The landlord of our commercial plaza location has temporarily locked all external doors to the plaza until notified otherwise to open them. Should you absolutely need to drop off information to us you will need to coordinate a drop off time. In addition, please call us when you arrive to indicate you are here (705 735 9950 ex 221). This way our staff can work effectively on behalf of all our clients during the day.

Maintaining firm COVID protocols

• 1)Our firm COVID protocol is to restrict the handling of any documents received by our office for the first three days. To cooperate and respect our protocol we ask you ensure you drop off your information far in advance of any deadline so there is time to process things for you.

• 2)Our staff will only be allowed to meet with you if your responses are NO to ALL the following four questions:
• ·Do you have a fever and/or cough or difficulty breathing?
• ·Have you travelled to impacted areas in the past 14 days?
• ·Have you been in contact with a confirmed or probable case of COVID-19?
• ·Have you been in close contact with someone who has an acute respiratory condition?

We continue to strictly observe the practice of PHYSICAL social distancing (6 feet of separation) with all our clients and request that you do the same with our staff.

When we meet with you at the door, we will discuss how we will take your information from you.

Payment for services

We will continue our normal practice of billing you via email for our services rendered.

Our preferred payment method at this time is by E-Transfer & you can email mike@kostrich.ca

As a firm we appreciate your patience and cooperation as we all work together through these unique times.

Please contact us know if you have any questions.

On behalf of all of us - stay safe and be well!

Sincerely,

Michael Kostrich CPA, CA

March 25, 2020

Link to a great practical video helping you understand some aspects of the Wage Subsidy, Emergency Benefits & Work Sharing during COVID-19.

March 25, 2020

Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) : Prime Minister Trudeau outlined a new Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) is being introduced which will provide $2000 per month for the next four months to workers who have lost their income as a result of COVID-19 - we've attached a link to the site to get information on this initiative.

March 18, 2020

Economic Response Plan : Prime Minister Trudeau outlined an economic response plan to deal with COVID-19 for both individuals and businesses - below you will find a PDF that summaries the key points relating to this plan.

March 25, 2020

Action Plan : Rod Phillips, the Minister of Finance unveiled the Ontario governments action plan measures to deal with COVID-19 for both individuals and businesses - you can click on our links section to access the key points relating to their planned initiatives.

March 27 - Canada Business Emergency Account - $40K loans to small business

The Federal government announced providing government backed loans of up to $40K to to assist small businesses with their ongoing working capital during the COVID crisis - details to be announced.

March 27 - Wage subsidy of up to 75%

The Federal government announced a further subisdy of up to 75% of salaries to assist small businesses who keep employees on the payroll during the COVID crisis - details to be announced.

March 18 - Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP)

The Federal government announced a $10 billion working capital funding to assist small businesses in dealing with the COVID crisis.

This program will be will be administered by the BDC (Business Development Corporation).

Ultimately these funds are for durable, profitable, sustainable businesses to help through this time until a more stable environment exists.

These are not bailout funds for companies who have shown losses, have deficits, no reporting in place & cannot provide cash flows that make sense - they will be declined.

We have attached a link to information on the BDC site regarding the program in our links section.

March 18 - Wage subsidy of up to 10%

The Federal government announced a wage subsidy of 10% of gross salaries to assist small businesses who keep employees on the payroll during the COVID crisis - details to be announced.

Banking arrangements

Each banking institution is responding to their clients regarding COVID assistance they can provide.

Measures are in place regarding lines of credit, credit cards, authorized overdrafts and term loans.

Each bank has its own unique initiatives. Please contact your small business account manager to discuss your situation.

Should you not have someone specifically dealing with your business accounts contact us to see if we can provide a contact source to you.

Our links section connects you with the Canada Revenue Agency landing site relating to COVID-19

We've attached the link to CFIB (The Canadian Federation of Independent Business) COVID-19 Help Centre which has some online resources available to you.

Our links section below includes a link to the Ontario government's list of essential workplaces for COVID-19 purposes.

Our links section connects you to the City of Barrie site that is providing its citizens with updates on issues related to COVID-19.

The best place to get info on COVID-19 in Barrie is our local health unit - we've included their home page in our links section

We have provided a link to the Ontario government site below which provides Ontarians with regular updates on issues related to COVID-19.

We have provided a link to the Government of Canada site below that provides Canadians with regular updates on issues related to COVID-19.

Our links section has a website that provides regularly updated information on the status of the coronavirus both globally & by country.