The records the CRA expects a small rental yard to keep

Income: every sale, with a document behind it

The CRA's page on business records starts with the law. You have to keep records of all your transactions, so you can back up your income and your expenses.

An income record needs three things: the date, the amount and the source. Record it whether you were paid in cash, property or services, so a cash rental counts the same as a card.

Back each entry with an original document. The CRA's list includes sales invoices, receipts, bank deposit slips and contracts. A signed rental agreement is a contract. Keep your bank statements, duplicate deposit slips and cancelled cheques too.

The CRA does not issue a record book or suggest one. Computer records are fine if they are clear and easy to read. If you run two businesses, keep separate records for each.

Expenses: what a receipt has to show

Get a receipt for everything you buy for the business. The CRA says it has to show five things.

• The date of the purchase.
• The name and address of the seller.
• The name and address of the buyer.
• A full description of the goods or services.
• The seller's business number, if they are registered for GST/HST and the purchase is $100 or more before tax.

A cash register tape may have no description. Write one on it. If a seller gives you no receipt at all, write their name and address, the amount, the date and what it was for in your expense journal.

For a yard, that covers the landfill's scale ticket, the fuel slip and the tire invoice.

GST/HST: when you have to start charging it

You do not have to register while your sales stay at $30,000 or less over four calendar quarters in a row, and in any single quarter. The CRA calls that being a small supplier.

Count revenue before expenses. A sole proprietor counts the taxable sales of all their businesses together, so a contractor who also rents out a machine adds the two.

Pass $30,000 inside one quarter and you charge GST/HST starting with the sale that put you over. Pass it across four quarters and you stop being a small supplier at the end of the month after that quarter. Either way, you have to register within 29 days of the day your registration takes effect.

What goes on a receipt once you charge it

Once you are registered, the customer has to be told about the tax. Show that the total includes GST/HST, or show the tax as its own amount, or show the rate.

A customer who is registered too, such as a contractor, can ask for a receipt they can claim the tax back with. What it has to show depends on the size of the sale.

• Under $100: your business name, the date and the total.
• $100 to $499.99: add the tax charged or a note that the total includes it, which items are taxable if some are exempt, and your GST/HST registration number.
• $500 or more: add the buyer's name, a short description of what was supplied and the terms of payment.

Build every invoice to the last row and all three are covered.

The truck: a kilometre log

The CRA's pages for sole proprietors and partnerships say you can deduct what a vehicle costs only when the costs are reasonable and you have receipts. Where a truck is used for both work and personal driving, only the work share counts.

So keep two totals for each vehicle: all the kilometres it drove in the year, and the kilometres it drove to earn income. For each business trip, log the date, the destination, the purpose and the kilometres. Write down the odometer at the start and end of your fiscal year. Two trucks means two logs.

The CRA's own example is a van that drove 30,000 km, 27,000 of them for business, with $5,400 of costs. The deduction is 27,000 divided by 30,000, times $5,400, which is $4,860.

The costs it lists include licence and registration, fuel and oil, insurance, interest on a vehicle loan, maintenance and repairs, and leasing.

After one full year of logging, the CRA accepts a three month sample log in later years, as long as the result is within 10% of that first year.

How long to keep it all

Six years, counted from the end of the last tax year the record relates to. For an individual the tax year is the calendar year, so a sole proprietor's 2026 records stay until the end of 2032.

If you file an income tax return late, the six years run from the day you file it. Destroying records sooner needs the CRA's written permission.

This is a summary of the CRA's own pages as they read in October 2026. It is not tax or legal advice. Several are written for sole proprietors and partnerships, so check with your accountant or the CRA how they apply to you, and more so if your yard is incorporated.

Where Haulbase fits

Haulbase is rental and delivery software built in Nova Scotia for yards in Canada. It keeps the income side of these records as the work happens.

• Every payment is kept as a receipt with the date, the amount and who paid. You can print it or email it again.
• An invoice line takes a quantity and a rate, and every payment carries the day it was paid.
• Once you charge tax, your tax number is on the receipt, with HST or GST at your province's rate.
• Payments shows your delivery fees before tax and the kilometres by the map, there and back, month by month.
• Your payments download as a spreadsheet for your accountant.

It is not a logbook, and it is not where your expenses go, apart from a maintenance log for each machine. The odometer readings, the trips that were not deliveries and what the truck cost are still yours to write down.

It is free for 30 days, with no card. After that it is $47 a month, and Haulbase takes nothing from what your customers pay. Card payments and deposit holds run through your own Stripe account, and Stripe's card fee is separate.

We set your page up with you, from your own price list and photos.