Accounting for breweries in Ontario
Craft breweries manage production inventory, taproom and wholesale sales, excise obligations, and equipment financed over years, one of the more complex small-business books.
CRA EFILE authorized · Every filing signed by an accountant · Switching is free — about an hour of your time
taxifi · Breweries
This month
- Bookkeeping Current
- Payroll & source deductions Filed
- HST Filed
- Year-end tax (T2) On track
The problems we take off your plate
Taproom, wholesale, and retail
Each sales channel is tracked separately so you can see how the brewery really performs.
Production inventory
Ingredients, packaging, and finished product are tracked so your cost of goods is accurate.
Excise and equipment
We keep production and sales records organized for your accountant to handle excise and HST, and equipment is claimed over time through capital cost allowance.
What’s included
Published prices for incorporated Ontario breweries. Everything below is handled.
- Bookkeeping across taproom, wholesale, and retail
- Production and inventory tracking
- Excise and HST handled with your accountant
- Equipment tracked for capital cost allowance
- Year-end corporate tax (T2), from $1,000 a year
| Area | A typical setup | With taxifi |
|---|---|---|
| Your books | Weeks or months behind | Current every day |
| Year-end (T2) | A spring scramble, billed extra | Included, no surprise invoice |
| Your accountant | Metered by the hour | Unlimited questions, flat monthly |
Excise duty is a second tax regime, on top of HST
A brewery is one of the few small businesses that answers to two federal tax regimes. Beyond HST, beer production is subject to federal excise duty administered by CRA under the excise legislation, with its own licensing, reporting, and remittance obligations tied to volumes produced rather than sales made. Brewery bookkeeping has to produce both sets of numbers from the same records.
Add the operational realities — packaging materials and ingredients as inventory, kegs and equipment as capital assets deducted over time, taproom sales taxed differently from wholesale and retail channels — and you have a business where the chart of accounts genuinely determines whether compliance is routine. Production records and financial records that reconcile are the whole game.
Common questions
Can you handle brewery excise and inventory?
Yes. We keep production and sales records organized, and your accountant handles the excise and HST filings.
Do you work with incorporated breweries?
Yes. Incorporated breweries are a fit.
Do breweries pay tax other than HST?
Yes. Beer production is subject to federal excise duty with its own licensing and reporting requirements, separate from and in addition to HST on sales. Excise obligations generally follow production volumes rather than sales, so brewery records have to support both regimes.
How should taproom sales be tracked against wholesale?
Separately. Taproom, retail, and wholesale channels carry different margins and can carry different tax mechanics, and blending them hides which channel actually pays. Channel-level revenue tracking is also what makes excise and HST reporting reconcilable rather than reconstructed.
Books and taxes for your craft brewery, done
Bookkeeping from $99 a month, accountant-reviewed from $299, corporate T2 from $1,000 a year. Prices are published; a call confirms the fit.
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