Top ten companies drive growth in the accounting services industry in 2019

Released: 2020-11-30

The operating revenue of the accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services industry rose by 5.2% to $21.4 billion in 2019. Operating expenses increased at a slightly higher pace than revenue, up 5.5% to $15.7 billion. As a result, the profit margin decreased slightly to 26.8%. The accounting industry is relatively concentrated, with the top 10 companies comprising 47% of all the industry's operating revenue in Canada.

For the first time since 2013, the share of sales in this industry from management consulting services did not grow in 2019. These services accounted for 14.0% of the industry's total sales, down slightly from 14.1% in 2018. Tax preparation and representation services generated the most sales, at 28.0% of all sales, an increase of 0.2 percentage points in 2019. Auditing and other assurance services, the second-highest source of sales, generated 27.5% of all sales in 2019, up 0.6 percentage points from 2018, but still lower than the high of 32.1% in 2014. Bookkeeping, financial statement compilation and payroll services were close behind, contributing 25.7% of total sales in 2019.

Overall, the provincial distribution of operating revenue for accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services remained largely the same as in past years, with Ontario (43.4%) accounting for the largest share of revenue, followed by Quebec (19.5%), British Columbia (14.9%) and Alberta (12.8%).

The business sector was the primary client of the accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services industry, generating 69.2% of total sales. This was down from 70.3% in 2018. This decrease was compensated for by sales to individuals and households—the proportion went from 15.4% of total sales in 2018 to 16.3% in 2019. The remaining sales were to governments, not-for-profit organizations and public institutions (8.1%) and to clients outside Canada (6.3%).

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many sectors of the Canadian economy, including the accounting industry, despite the higher prevalence of teleworking in professional services (Table 33-10-0274-01). According to monthly gross domestic product estimates, the accounting services industry grew until March 2020, when it fell 6.9% compared with February (Table 36-10-0434-01). The industry began to grow again in May 2020 but has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels of output. One of the factors that may explain this is the number of active businesses in Canada, which declined by 10.7% from 797,840 in February 2020 to 712,150 in July 2020 (Table 33-10-0270-01). In addition, the Canada Revenue Agency extended the taxfiling deadline to June 30, 2020, and extended payments to September 30, 2020.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).