Most owners think choosing a year-end engagement is complicated. It isn't. There are only four ways to close a Canadian corporate year-end — GIFI, Compilation, Review, or Audit — and the right one usually comes down to a single question: who actually reads your financial statements? Here's how to read your own situation in about two minutes.

Clients rarely call and say "I need a controller." They call because the statements don't feel right, the books are behind, or year-end turned up a problem that had been hiding for months. Here are the seven signs a business has quietly outgrown its accounting team — and what to do about it.