Novack CPA

The best planning conversations I have in September share one thing:

Nothing is due.

No deadline. No filing. No pressure. Just a working session on the year while it can still be shaped.

Where will income land. What should move before December. What should wait for January. What's changed since the structure was set up.

An hour of this in September is worth more than five hours of cleanup in March.

That's the whole case for starting early.

Most incorporated professionals make their three most expensive decisions by not making them.

1. Salary vs. dividend mix for the remainder of 2026
Still adjustable today. Much harder to adjust with two months left in the year.

2. Equipment, technology, or capital purchases
December vs. January is a real decision that affects this year's deductions. Not an accident of timing.

3. Compensation for family members who work in the business
If they're doing real work, the documentation and payment structure should be set now, not reconstructed in March.

None of these are complicated. All of them get missed when the first planning conversation happens in November.

Summer's over.

For most incorporated professionals, September is when decisions start compounding into year-end tax outcomes.

Not November but September.

The compensation adjustments, structure changes, and planning conversations that leave you room to move happen now, while there's still time to act.

Wait until November and you're documenting decisions you can no longer influence. Use September to plan and you create the outcomes you want.

Different game. Different result.

If you haven't heard from your CPA about Q4 planning yet, that tells you something.

September starts this week.

For incorporated professionals, it's the most underrated month of the tax year.

Not because anything is due. Because everything is still adjustable.

Compensation mix. Purchase timing. Structure questions. Family compensation documentation. All of it still open, with enough runway to actually implement changes properly.

By November, the options narrow. By January, they're gone.

Treat September as the planning month and you end up with outcomes the November crowd doesn't.

More this week on what that actually looks like.

Dentists across the GTA are interviewing associates right now for fall starts.

One thing worth doing before anyone signs:

-Decide what "production" actually means in the compensation formula.
-Collections or billings? Before or after lab fees? Who absorbs adjustments and write-offs?

These sound like details. They're not. They're the difference between an associate who feels fairly paid and one who's quietly recalculating their split every month.

The cheapest time to get this right is before the start date.

Honest question for incorporated professionals and owner managers:

When did your accountant last call YOU with an idea?

Not a request for documents. Not a deadline reminder. An actual idea, question, or recommendation they initiated.

I ask because the answer usually tells you whether you're getting planning or just compliance. Most people have never thought about the difference.

Genuinely curious what the honest answers look like.

Two weeks left in August.

Every fall, the same pattern with incorporated professionals across the GTA:

The questions they parked in June are still sitting there.

The associate conversation they've been avoiding.
The structure that hasn't been revisited since incorporation.
The compensation mix set years ago and never updated.

September is when those questions either get answered or get deferred another year.

Deferring feels easier. It's also the most expensive option. You just never see the invoice.

Been quiet on here over the summer. Head down with client work.

Back at it, because the next four months are the ones that actually matter for incorporated professionals.

The decisions that determine your 2026 tax outcome get made between now and December. Not in March.

More on that in the coming weeks.

Coffee this morning with Marco Lippi at Gardiner Roberts LLP on the M&A side.

The strongest deals for business owners happen when the M&A lawyer, CPA, and financial advisors are aligned early. Not brought in sequentially once the deal is in motion.

That kind of coordination doesn't happen by accident. It happens because the professionals involved have already built the relationships.

Good to add Marco to the list.

&A

A new client told me yesterday that they found me through ChatGPT.

He asked which CPA in Toronto could help with his professional corporation. My name came up. He reached out.

That's a new channel I wasn't actively building for.

The takeaway for business owners and professionals: AI is becoming the new way to find your advisors. It pulls from media features, thought leadership, and consistent positioning, not from generic content or paid ads.

If you're looking for a CPA, CA who actually understands your niche, asking AI is faster than scrolling LinkedIn or searching Google.

(And if your current advisor doesn't show up in those AI conversations, that tells you something too.)