The Backgrounder Library Card Catalogue

Trade and Tariff Terms

These terms come up when reading about how trade uncertainty and cross-border costs affect your business.

Tariffs
Taxes on imported goods. For small businesses they often show up as higher costs because unlike GST/HST, tariffs are not revenue neutral. There are no input tax credits to recover.

De Minimis
A rule that used to allow low-value shipments to cross the border without duties or customs fees. The threshold and rules around this have been changing.

CUSMA Review
The 2026 review of the trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It matters because trade rules affect pricing, sourcing, and planning. The United States refers to it as USMCA.

Trade Rules In Flux
A fancy way of saying the business rules around cross-border trade are still changing, which makes planning harder than usual right now.

Cost and Cash Flow Terms

These terms come up when tracking expenses, setting prices, or talking to your accountant about where your money is going.

Input Costs
The cost of the things you need to buy to run or deliver your business. That can include raw materials, inventory, parts, packaging, software, or tools.

Direct Costs
Costs tied directly to what you sell. If you make or sell products this could be materials, inventory, packaging, or shipping. If you provide services it could include subcontractor time or project-specific tools.

Indirect Costs
Costs that support the business overall but are not tied to one specific sale. Think internet, bookkeeping software, insurance, office supplies, or utilities.

Operating Costs
The ongoing costs of keeping the business running day to day. This includes both direct and indirect costs depending on the business.

Packaging and Shipping Costs
The cost of getting a product safely to the customer. That can include boxes, mailers, tape, labels, postage, courier charges, customs, brokerage, and related fees.

Service Business Costs
If you do not sell physical products your business still has inputs. These may include software, phone, internet, mileage, subcontractors, professional fees, or equipment needed to deliver your work.

Pricing Pressure
What happens when your costs go up but you cannot easily raise your prices without risking lost sales or unhappy customers.

(Profit) Margins
The portion of your sales income left after covering direct costs. When costs rise and prices stay the same, margins shrink. If your costs go up faster than your prices, your margins get squeezed.

Cash Flow
What money is coming in, what money is going out, and whether the timing works in real life. A business can look profitable on paper and still run into trouble if cash is tight. Profit does not equal cash flow.

Liquidity
How much cash, or near-cash, you have available to pay bills, taxes, and surprises without scrambling.

Resilience Terms

These terms come up across the resilience and compliance sections of the site. They are not buzzwords. Each one describes a specific condition your business is either in or working toward.

Financial Stress
The mental and emotional strain that comes from money pressure, uncertainty, debt, or not knowing what happens next.

Avoidance
Putting off looking at your numbers, opening bank statements, dealing with bookkeeping, or making decisions because the stress feels too heavy.

Personal Financial Stability
Having enough order in your own personal finances that business decisions are less likely to come from panic, fear, or desperation.

Perfect Bookkeeping
On this site this means something specific. Accuracy on what matters most. All sales reported. Major expenses captured and traceable. Tax obligations tracked. The goal is not perfection on every trivial transaction. It is accuracy where accuracy protects you.

Building Rhythms In Your Business Terms

Financial Resilience
Your ability to keep operating, adapt, and make steady decisions even when conditions stay uncertain and do not go back to normal.

CRA-Ready
Organized enough that your reports are easier to file correctly and easier to defend if the Canada Revenue Agency ever asks questions.

Audit-Ready
Having organized, traceable financial records that are easy for an outside party to review, verify, and follow.

Audit-Proofing
The proactive process of keeping clear, organized, well-documented records so your transactions are easy to verify and support if CRA asks questions.

Habit-Based System
A way of managing your business that works with what you already tend to do naturally instead of fighting it. It greatly reduces decision fatigue.

Solo CEO Move
Signals a single, specific action needed that moves one number in the right direction. Watch for the 🦆 throughout the Building Resilience series.

Solopreneur
A self-employed business owner running a business mainly on their own, with little or no staff.

Tax Set-Aside
Reserving a portion to meet your taxation obligations.

Tax & Filing Mechanics

Terms that come up when you are filing mandatory reports with the CRA.

Source Deductions
Amounts withheld from an employee's paycheque and remitted to the CRA on their behalf. As the employer you remit withheld income taxes (WIT), CPP, EI as well as the employer's share.

Installments
Quarterly prepayments of estimated tax owing. Required once you exceed certain thresholds. CRA sends reminders but the obligation exists whether you receive one or not.

Small Supplier
A business whose taxable sales have not yet crossed the GST/HST registration threshold which is generally $30,000 over four consecutive calendar quarters. Once you cross it, registration is mandatory.

CRA Program Account
A sub-account attached to your Business Number for a specific obligation. RT for GST/HST, RP for payroll, RC for corporate income tax. You only open ones that apply to you.

Reviews and Audits

Terms that come up when you are dealing with CRA reviews, audits, or trying to figure out what a notice means.

Self-assessment
Canada’s tax system expects you to calculate, report, and file your taxes correctly yourself, even if someone helps prepare the return.

CRA Review
A check of specific items on your return, such as receipts, deductions, or credits. A review is not the same as a full audit.

Pre-Assessment Review
CRA’s initial arithmetic check of your return before issuing your Notice of Assessment.

Processing Review
A post-assessment request for documents to support specific amounts claimed on your return that CRA is monitoring. It also has an educational component to it.

Matching Program
CRA compares what you reported with information it receives from third parties such as slips from banks, employers, and platforms. It also includes global reporting standards exchanged between countries. Distribution of tax credits and benefits depend on the correct net income.

CRA Audit
A deeper examination of your records and reporting to verify that what you filed is accurate.

Office Audit (Desk Audit)
An informal, routine audit handled remotely, usually through document submission, phone, or correspondence. If not handled properly, it can become a field audit.

Field Audit
A detailed audit where CRA examines records at your business location or through your authorized representative. The scope and process are more thorough, broader, intense and serious.

Notice of Assessment (NOA)
CRA’s official summary showing how your return was processed and whether you owe tax, are getting a refund, or had changes made.

Express NOA
A fast initial assessment available through tax software or your CRA portal. It does not mean CRA is finished reviewing your return.

Notice of Reassessment (NOR)
A notice issued when CRA changes your return after a review, audit, or an amendment request.

Notice of Objection
The formal process for disputing an assessment or reassessment if you believe CRA is wrong.

Voluntary Disclosure Program
A program that may offer partial relief in some situations if you correct past issues before CRA takes certain enforcement steps. It may not be the best tool for your situation.

Acronyms And Abbreviations

A quick reference for abbreviations used across the site. If you hit one and were not sure, it is here.

JUMP TO >> CRA Accounts |  Payroll | Sales Tax | Benefits | Business | Trade

CRA Programs & Accounts

• BN ... Business Number (CRA's identifier for your business)
• CRA ... Canada Revenue Agency

Payroll & Employment

• CCPC ... Canadian Controlled Private Corporation
• CPP ... Canada Pension Plan
• EI ... Employment Insurance
• IC ... Independent Contractor
• PSB ... Personal Services Business (IncorporatedEmployee)

Sales Tax

• GST ... Goods and Services Tax
• HST ... Harmonized Sales Tax
• ITC ... Input Tax Credits (GST/HST paid on eligible business expenses that you can recover) 
• PST ... Provincial Sales Tax

Registered & Government Benefit Accounts

• ACWB ... Advanced Canada Workers Benefit (formerly WITB)
• ALDA ... Advanced Life Deferred Annuity
• CCB ... Canada Child Benefit
• CCR ... Canada Carbon Rebated (ended April 2025)
• CWB ... Canada's Worker Benefit
• GIS ...  Guaranteed Income Supplement
• RRSP ... Registered Retirement Savings Plan
• TFSA ... Tax Free Savings Account

Business & Finance

• CCA ... Capital Cost Allowance (the tax version of depreciation)
• CEO ... Chief Executive Officer
• CPRS ... Construction Payment Reporting System
• E-Transfers ... Interac's bank-to-bank digital money transfer service
• NSF ... Non-Sufficient Funds
• PLOI ... Pertinent Loans or Indebtedness

Trade & Cross Border

• CUSMA ... Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement
• FATCA ... Foreign Account Tax Compliance Across (US)
• FBAR ... Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (US)
• USMCA ... United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (the American name for CUSMA)