Most people think to incorporate federally and provincially it requires a lawyer and tons of paperwork. I recently incorporated my business provincially and it is actually quite easy, you do not need a lawyer, or spend much money.

One thing to note is, my business only includes myself and the structure is straight forward, for anything more complicated you would want to dicuss with a lawyer.

Three things to note:

• Print off two copies of all documents
• Single sided pages only
• Bring a black ink pen with you
• If you don’t have a printer you can print at the Staples beside the drop off office.

Incorporating Provincially

1. Order an Ontario Nuans name search report at Corporations Centre for $25 + HST. I got the report emailed to me within 10 minutes. Print off two copies (single sided pages!) If you only want a numbered corporation you do not need this report. You will just be assigned the next number they are handing out.

2. Print and fill out two copies of Ontario Corporation Form 1. Enter yourself as sole director and incorporator. no restrictions on share xfer, unlimited common shares and none for everything else. Note you should actually read and understand the doc before filling it out.

3. Head down to 375 University Ave. 2nd Floor. Drop off all the duplicates forms to the office employee, pay $360. They will hand you back one stamped copy with a number and a Initial Return by an Ontario Corporation, Form 1. This is a simple form, just fill in your name and company address. Use a black ink pen, then hand this in to the next front desk in the same room.

4. You are now incorporated provincially.

Total cost to incorporate

• Nuans name report: $25 + HST ($28.25)
• Government filing fee: $360
• Total: $388.25

Making changes to your corporation

If you need to make changes you can always change it later by resolution. I’ve never done this but you can just search how to do this.

Minute Book

You don’t need a paralegal do handle the minute book for you. Samples of minute books can be found online for you. Modify it to suit your needs.

Funding the business

I funded the company via personal loan. Then reimbursed myself via petty cash report to the company.

Opening a business bank account

From my research the best open for me was the BMO e-business plan. Although it says on the site, cannot open a US money account. I got around this by opening a separate US money account and connecting them. Just ask someone in the branch.

Business Credit Card

I decided not to open a business CC, it really wasn’t worth my time to open, manage and balance. I don’t have many expenses and one was thing to do. What I do instead is pay with my personal card and have the business reimburse me.

Accounting Software

From my search I found Wave to be the best fit for me. It handled everything I needed, mostly good accounting. They recently got bought by H&R Block, so we’ll see how things go, if it’s not looking good I will switch to something else.

Incorporating Federally

Very similar to incorporating provincially by this can all be done online. I never did this myself but here are the steps anyway.

The reason I didn’t go this route was because it requires an annual report to be filled out and filed. This costs $20 for each filing. I wanted to keep my business low maintenance and if need be, I can always incorpoate federally later.

1. Grab a Federal NUANS report, you don’t need this if you only want a number corporation. People take a number for holding companys, in my case I wanted a name to be referred to as. Buy it and wait for it to come via email. Note You need to purchase a federal nuans report. This does a search all throughout Canada unlike the provincial one.

2. Go answer these questions here.

3. Enter your payment info and wait for everything to be sent to you via email.

Filing first corporate tax return

I’ve never done this myself but this person has:

Note: There is no requirement to report shares issued/transferred/bought/sold or shareholder information to either authority as erronously reported around the InterWebs. In fact there is no requirement even to decide any of that at the time of incorporation but you better do it shortly after incorporation if you have multiple shareholders as everyone wants to know what they are getting. If it’s just you there is no rush but you have to have it done by the time you prepare your first financial statement and certainly before you file your first corporation tax return. You need not contribute anything to the company and the share can just have a nominal value of $0.01. Personally I just loan $ to my co and have it paid back. You can do that with multiple shareholders too./

From a red flag deals post.

One Last Form

You need to fill out this conset to act as first director for your own records. But this is not necessary during filing.