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CSV: agency accounts with default QuickBooks codes and the contractor and platform exceptions annotated.
Download chart of accounts (CSV)Also available
The bookkeeping load of an Ontario agency is not volume, it is judgment: a dozen contractor invoices with three different tax situations, platform bills from two countries, and revenue that changes rate with the client’s address. This QuickBooks Online chart of accounts moves those judgments into account structure and notes, so daily coding becomes selection rather than research.
Contractors and the registration line
Freelancer and contractor costs is the account where Canadian services tax is most personal. Registered contractors bill HST ON, and the 13% returns as an input tax credit. Small suppliers under the threshold bill nothing, legitimately, and no credit exists. Both belong in this one account; what must never happen is a no-tax invoice coded as if 13% were embedded in it. The readable CSV’s note says it plainly: verify registration when onboarding a contractor, and re-check when their rates jump.
Pass-through media and ad spend separates client-billed platform money from your own promotion. On the tax side it inherits the industry’s headache: Google or Meta billed from a Canadian entity gives you creditable HST, while foreign-billed spend under the simplified GST/HST framework charges tax that is lost unless the platform has your registration number on file.
Revenue coded by the client’s map pin
Services income defaults to HST ON, the correct answer for Ontario clients, with the note carrying the rest: services untied to a location take the client’s province, so the Calgary retainer is GST at 5% and the export client is Z. QuickBooks’ provincial code list makes each new geography a one-time enable under Taxes.
Small accounts, real Ontario rules
- Professional liability insurance: exempt code
E, with Ontario’s 8% RST simply raising the cost. - Professional dues and memberships:
HST ONwith the credit intact for professional bodies; recreational club dues, held in the base chart’s club account, never yield an ITC. - Home office costs:
Out of scope; the workspace claim happens on the income tax return. - Software subscriptions:
HST ONdomestically; foreign SaaS needs your registration number or its charged tax is dead weight. - Meals and entertainment: full HST on the card slip, 50% of it claimable for most firms; pitch lunches accumulate here.
From download to working file
- Enable sales tax so Ontario’s codes exist, then import the chart under Settings, Import data, Chart of accounts.
- QuickBooks codes tax at the transaction line, so circulate the readable CSV as the team’s coding sheet; its default-plus-alternatives format was written for that use.
- When the first client or contractor appears in a new province, enable that province’s code and add it to the sheet.
- Before each filing, scan the freelancer and platform accounts for coding that contradicts the note rules.
QuickBooks’ billable-expense feature fits agency life well, and this chart plays nicely with it: mark the contractor bill or media buy billable to the client when it is entered, and the cost flows onto the next client invoice with a markup if you choose. Remember that the rebilled line on your invoice is your supply, so it takes your invoice’s tax code; the billable flag copies the amount, not the tax character of the original purchase.
Agencies drown in small documents, and small documents are where these judgment calls silently go wrong. Dext stabilizes recurring supplier coding with rules. ExpenseFlow reads each bill, applies the registration-aware contractor logic and the platform distinctions above, and posts coded entries into QuickBooks against this exact chart. Hubdoc keeps source documents attached to the trail.
On Xero instead? The mirrored chart is Ontario agency chart of accounts for Xero. For code definitions, use the Ontario QuickBooks sales tax codes reference.