Filing your corporation's T2 with your Stacko records

Updated August 15, 2026 · Stacko team

If you run a Canadian corporation, your annual return is a T2. Stacko doesn't produce or file a T2 — corporations file the T2 electronically through CRA-certified software, usually with an accountant. What Stacko *does* give you is the hardest, most tedious half: clean, evidence-backed, categorized expense records. This guide walks you through gathering everything else so the return itself is quick to finish.

You can work through this in stages — start, save your files, come back later. Nothing here has to be done in one sitting.

> This is an organizing guide, not tax advice. It explains what a T2 needs and how to line up your records for it. It doesn't tell you what to claim, how to pay yourself, or that the CRA will accept any particular treatment. Those are decisions for your accountant.

The short version

1. Stacko gives you your expenses. Export the CSV (and, only if you're a sole proprietor, the T2125 — not applicable to a corporation). 2. You gather the rest: your revenue, the money that moved between you and the corporation, and your bank balances. 3. Your accountant (or you, in certified T2 software) assembles the return from those two halves.

Stacko does step 1. This guide is steps 2 and 3.

What to have on hand (your document checklist)

Collect these as you go — you don't need them all at once:

• [ ] Certificate of incorporation (you'll need the incorporation date)
• [ ] Your fiscal year-end date (the corporation's, which may not be December 31)
• [ ] CRA business number and your filing credentials (a Web Access Code, or your accountant's EFILE)
• [ ] Bank and credit-card statements for the full fiscal year, for every corporate account
• [ ] Your receipts (these live in Stacko — see below)
• [ ] Your revenue records: invoices or sales reports, to check against the deposits Stacko shows you in Money In.
• [ ] Any money you took out or put in: owner draws, contributions, expense reimbursements to yourself
• [ ] Payroll records (if you paid yourself a salary: T4, source-deduction remittances)
• [ ] Dividend records (if you declared a dividend: the directors' resolution and any T5)
• [ ] Last year's T2 (if this isn't your first return — for opening balances)

If an item genuinely doesn't apply (say, you never declared a dividend), note that and move on. "Not sure" is fine to leave as a question for your accountant — don't guess.

Part 1 — Your expenses (this is the Stacko part)

Everything you've captured in Stacko is your business expense record.

1. Make sure your receipts are reviewed and each one is marked Business or Personal. Personal items stay out of your business totals — that's correct and intended. 2. Go to Settings → Account → Data Management and choose Export receipts (CSV). Keep the file private. 3. That CSV — vendor, date, amount, category, and whether each item is business or personal — is what your accountant needs for the expense side. Every row traces back to a receipt or an imported statement line.

One thing to watch during review: if you import a bank statement, the money that left the company to pay you (draws, dividends, payroll) will show up as charges needing a decision. Don't accept these as business expenses — they aren't expenses; they're money moving between you and the corporation, and they belong in Part 3, not your expense total. Accepting them would overstate your deductions. For now, keep a separate list of these for your accountant (date, amount, what it was): a dedicated workflow for retaining these corporate owner-movements isn't available yet, so don't rely on the expense side to hold them.

Part 2 — Your revenue

A T2 needs your income, and Stacko helps you build it the same way it helps with expenses: it shows you the money coming *in* and totals it, and you decide what each deposit actually is.

When you import a bank statement (or connect a bank), the deposits come in alongside the charges. When Money In is enabled for your account, Stacko lists the deposits it imported and totals them, so you have a running list to work from instead of building one from scratch — check it against your own records for the fiscal year to be sure nothing's missing. Go through the list and separate the deposits that are customer payments from the ones that aren't:

• Customer payments — money customers paid you for your work. This is the money your income is built from.
• Not a customer payment — you putting your own money into the company, transfers between the company's own accounts, and refunds. These belong in Part 3, not your income.

Those customer payments, added up, are your starting point for the revenue line — the raw total of money customers paid you. It isn't the final number on its own: your accountant turns it into the figure on the return by backing out the GST/HST you collected, moving anything that belongs to a different year, and setting aside refunds or deposits that aren't sales. So hand them this total, cross-checked against your invoices or sales records so nothing's missed, and note whether your amounts include GST/HST — they'll need to know.

Part 3 — Money between you and the corporation

This is the part people miss, and it's the one a corporation can't skip. Every time money moved between you (the owner) and the company, write it down: the date, the amount, the direction, and what it was.

• You → company (you funded the business or topped up its account): a contribution. This increases what the company owes you.
• Company → you, to pay you back for a business expense you covered personally: a reimbursement (the expense itself belongs in Stacko with its receipt).
• Company → you, otherwise: a draw. Whether that draw counts as salary, a dividend, or a loan repayment is decided in Part 4 — for now just record it as a draw.

Add it all up to get your closing shareholder loan balance — the net of what the company owes you (or, if you took out more than you put in and it wasn't salary or a dividend, what you owe the company). If that balance ends up with *you* owing the company across the year-end, flag it clearly for your accountant — it has tax consequences and shouldn't be glossed over.

Part 4 — Salary vs. dividend (an accountant decision)

If money came out to pay you, how it's characterized matters, and it's genuinely your accountant's call — not something to decide from a template. Work through it in order:

1. Did you run actual payroll? (A payroll account, source deductions remitted, a T4 filed or filable.) If yes, those amounts are salary — a deductible expense on the income side. 2. Did you formally declare a dividend? (A dated directors' resolution; a T5 may be required.) If yes, that's a dividend — not an expense, reported separately. 3. Neither documented? Then the draws you recorded in Part 3 are shareholder-loan movements for now, and how to treat them for the year is a decision to make with your accountant, using your actual records — not something to backfill after the fact.

Stacko can't and won't make this call for you. Bring Part 3 to your accountant and decide it together.

Part 5 — Your balances

The return also needs a simple picture of the corporation's finances at year-end:

• Cash in each bank/card account at year-end (from your statements)
• The shareholder-loan balance from Part 3
• Any equipment or assets the company bought
• GST/HST owing, if you're registered
• Retained earnings (from last year's return, or your first-year result)

At a small scale this is a short list. Anything that doesn't add up is a question for your accountant, not something to force to balance.

Part 6 — Filing the return

You now have both halves: the Stacko expense CSV, and Parts 2–5. The T2 itself gets assembled from them:

• With an accountant (recommended for most): hand them the CSV plus your Parts 2–5 notes and records. Clean records make this fast and inexpensive.
• On your own: corporations must file the T2 electronically through CRA-certified T2 software. Your organized records go in there.

A couple of timing notes: a T2 is generally due six months after your fiscal year-end, and any balance owing is due sooner (usually two to three months after year-end). If you're close to or past a deadline, note it and factor in interest rather than ignoring it.

What Stacko is and isn't doing here

Stacko produced your evidence-backed expense records and this guide. It did not prepare, review, or file your T2, and nothing here is tax, accounting, or legal advice. The expense side is done and clean; the return and the professional judgment happen outside Stacko — which is exactly the boundary [Stacko is built around](what-stacko-does-and-doesnt-do).