Research Outline

Accounting Firms - Focused on Working with Startups: Canada and New Zealand

Goals

To have a broad understanding of the accounting firms that are focused on working with startups and SMEs in Canada and New Zealand. An ideal response would be a competitive landscape of all the companies offering accounting and finance services to startups and small and medium enterprises [SMEs] in Canada (especially in Toronto and Vancouver) and New Zealand.

Early Findings

Caveats to the Research

  • As a reminder, Wonder only uses publicly available sources. We do not have access to paid databases or paywalled reports, but we can cite them in research for reference only [in case purchase is desired]. If that is of interest, that would clearly have to be communicated to us in any reply. However, no indication of paid resources to add value to this research was seen in the discovery phase.
  • There were no precompiled sources that offered an exhaustive list of all the companies offering accounting and finance services to startups and SMEs in Canada (especially in Toronto and Vancouver) and New Zealand. Because of this, we had to search for companies ourselves that we felt met the parameters of the research. We were able to provide twelve Canadian firms, which took up the bulk of the hour. We did not have time to thoroughly vet New Zealand, but we did find a paid report that provided the four companies holding the largest market share in the accounting services industry in New Zealand, which was shared under the New Zealand header below.
  • Many companies do not specifically state that they work with startups [though one could extrapolate that they all would]. For this research, however, we only provided companies that specifically stated they work with startups as well as SMEs.

Canada

  • BDO offers accounting and financial services to startups and emerging technology. They specifically offer "personalized tax, accounting, and advisory services to help manage a company's growth. BDO works with many technology community leaders, incubators and accelerators across Canada.
  • Entreflow offers accounting and bookkeeping services for startups and have locations in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto.
  • Avalon offer accounting services that help Canadian small business owners all along their entrepreneurship journey. Small companies are defined by Avalon as those with 0-40 employees and between zero and $5 million in annual revenue.
  • SRJ Chartered Professional Accountants has worked with several high growth startups to help secure funding through government tax credits and offer accounting services for startups.
  • GTA Professional Accounting offers comprehensive services for startups includes bookkeeping, preparation of financial statements and tax filings.
  • Stonehenge Accounting provides accounting, payroll, tax and advisory services for start-ups in the Greater Toronto Area.
  • Enkel offers accounting as a service for technology companies. They assert that "from startup to exit, [they] deliver accounting for tech companies in all sectors and stages."
  • Crowe Soberman works with investors, startups and small businesses across Canada.
  • KRP provides strategic tax, accounting and consulting services to fast-growing start-ups to mid-sized firms.
  • Future Balance has worked with some of Canada's top emerging start-ups as well as a number of premier established Canadian companies.
  • Based in Toronto, Grant Thorton is a leading Canadian accounting and advisory firm providing audit, tax and advisory services to private and public organizations.
  • KPMG in Canada offers advisory, audit and tax services to startups.

New Zealand

Summary Of Our Early Findings Relevant To The Goals

  • The initial hour of research was spent trying to locate a precompiled source that would give us an exhaustive list of all the companies offering accounting and finance services to startups and SMEs in Canada (especially in Toronto and Vancouver) and New Zealand. As discussed at the top of this document, that was not possible and we had to hand curate each company. We only had time to collect 12 companies for Canada, and we did not have time to hand select any companies in New Zealand, though we did find a paywalled report that provided those companies with the largest market share, which we provided under the New Zealand header.
  • As a reminder, Wonder only uses publicly available sources. We do not have access to paid databases or paywalled reports, but we can cite them in research for reference only [in case purchase is desired]. If that is of interest, that would clearly have to be communicated to us in any reply. However, no indication of paid resources to add value to this research was seen in the discovery phase.
  • Again we want to emphasize that many companies do not specifically state that they work with startups [though one could extrapolate that they all would]. For this research, however, we only provided companies that specifically stated they work with startups as well as SMEs.
  • Please select one or more of the options provided in the proposed scoping section below.