About
We work for firms, not around them
apar exists for one narrow purpose: to give Canadian accounting and bookkeeping practices more capacity without asking them to risk the relationships they have spent years building.
Why we only serve firms
Plenty of bookkeeping companies will happily take your client directly. We do not, and the restriction is deliberate rather than modest. The moment a provider serves both firms and the firms' clients, every engagement carries a quiet conflict — and the firm on the other side of it can feel that, whether or not anything ever goes wrong.
By working only through firms, our incentives point one direction. We succeed when your practice can take on more work than it could staff for, and we have nothing to gain from knowing who your clients are beyond doing their books accurately.
Reviewed under CPA supervision
Bookkeeping is only as good as the review behind it. Work at apar is performed under the supervision of a Chartered Professional Accountant, and files go through a documented internal review before they are handed back to your firm. You receive work that has already been checked — which is what makes it worth delegating in the first place.
What we are, precisely
We think it is worth being exact about this, because the accounting profession in Canada uses these terms carefully and so should we.
apar is a bookkeeping services provider, not a licensed public accounting firm. We do not provide audit, review or other assurance services, and we do not file tax returns. Professional advice, filings and sign-off remain the responsibility of your firm.
In practice, that means we are very good at the part of the work that consumes the most hours and generates the least professional judgment — and we hand the file to you at exactly the point where your judgment starts to matter.
How we think about the work
- Reviewed beats fast. Work that comes back needing correction has cost you more than it saved. We would rather deliver on the agreed date having checked it.
- Documented beats remembered. Every file has written conventions, so the standard survives whoever happens to be available that month.
- Escalated beats plugged. An unexplained difference gets raised with its document trail attached. It never gets buried in a suspense account to make a reconciliation close.
- Boring beats clever. A predictable monthly cycle is worth more to your practice than any individually impressive month.
Start with one file.
Put one client file through a single period at the standard rate. You review the close package and decide whether there is a second. That is the entire commitment.