Bookkeeping For Canadians for Dummies

This time of year Canadians and Americans both suffer the same terrible stressful fate. Tax season. It is a blight on all activity and can be daunting rounding up all those receipts and T4s. This year, at thriftymommastips.com I am up to my eyeballs trying to sort through what gets claimed, what doesn’t get claimed and how to estimate and accurately record blogging income. That could be a whole other book, I think. No matter how much time you have to prepare, no matter what career you are in – many of us are never really ready for tax season.

When I spied Bookkeeping for Canadians for Dummies up for review recently, well I thought maybe, just maybe it would help lend insight into the tricky business of taxes. So, I sought it out and jumped into the scintillating text. Just kidding. This is not Fifty Shades for tax season.

The book starts with a laugh which pretty much summed up my approach to taxes. The first cartoon by Fifth Wave says: “I’m mathematically dyslexic. But it’s not that unusual. 100 out of every 15 people are.” 

I enjoy how well organized this For Dummies series of books are constructed. Every topic is neatly indexed and contained in a chapter with the occasional funny cartoon interspersed. The index and table of contents are great tools to guide your reading and research. If that doesn’t do it for you there is also a glossary and the handy icons help simplify tips, warnings and examples.  I can easily seek out the specific item I need guidance on and quickly flip to that page or chapter. That’s crucial for keeping tax season simple. Also the icons help me to skip over parts that aren’t relevant to my situation. 

I am clearly no tax expert and this book didn’t magically turn me into one. I found it very difficult to get through some of the specifics. I am probably now even more convinced that I need help and I am more motivated to ask for a professional to guide my taxes. But at the same time, I know more than I did when I started this book. Bookkeeping for Dummies for Canadians is not a book you read at bedtime or  from cover to cover, but it is a handy reference tool. I often come back to the accounts receivable and accounts payable terms for instance when I am doing my own business affairs here. When I have a reference point I can remember which is which and how to organize. That’s where this book comes in handy. It’s almost like a dictionary for translating bookkeeping terms. 

In the end I am still a tax dummy after reading this book, but I understand a few more of the terms now that I did before. I also have a great guide to help me look up and translate what the tax person is saying. Maybe it’s just me, but I have a small mental block for tax season. I am at least smart enough to know that I need help. That’s half the battle. Good luck with your taxes this year. If you need just a little help, then this would be a great reference tool for you. If you want to understand more about your taxes by next year, then buy this now and get studying. 

Bookkeeping for Canadians For Dummies, second edition is by Lita Epstein and Cecile Laurin, John Wiley and Sons, Canada, Toronto, 2013. $29.99 368 pages.

This one gets $$$$ out of $$$$$. It is still quite complex.