Monthly Brokerage Bookkeeping
Monthly bookkeeping built for Canadian insurance brokerages
Outsourced monthly bookkeeping for Canadian insurance brokerages, done inside Applied Epic. We code the month's activity, reconcile bank, trust and carrier accounts, run AP and AR, and deliver a close package on a fixed date.
What you get
- Monthly transaction coding and reconciliation in Applied Epic
- Bank, trust, and credit card reconciliations
- Accounts payable and accounts receivable management
- Vendor and expense management
- Monthly close package with a short written summary
What changes for your brokerage
- Books closed and reconciled every month, not weeks behind
- Operating, trust, and credit card accounts reconciled on a schedule
- Premiums payable and receivable tracked, not guessed at
- A monthly close package owners can actually read
- Year-end file ready to hand to your external accountant
How the monthly engagement works
The work happens inside Applied Epic
We work in your Applied Epic accounting module rather than rebuilding your books in a separate ledger. Policy, billing and accounting stay in one system, so a commission figure on a statement can be traced back to the policy that produced it. If the module was never configured properly, we tell you that first and fix it before the monthly cycle starts.
Agency bill and direct bill are coded differently
Agency bill is premium you collect and owe the insurer. Direct bill is commission the insurer collects and later remits to you. The two hit different accounts and carry different risk, so we code them separately and keep premiums payable off the same line as commission income. Blurring the two is the most common reason a brokerage's balance sheet stops making sense.
Trust money is reconciled on its own
Premium held in trust is reconciled separately from your operating account every month, and you get the trust position in writing rather than finding out at year-end. Monthly bookkeeping includes the bank reconciliation, trust asset versus trust liability comparison, surplus or shortfall figure, exception log, and dated supporting statement. If trust reconciliation is scoped as its own focused engagement, that work is carved out of the monthly scope and priced once, never twice.
Carrier statements get reconciled, not just filed
Each insurer statement is matched against what your system says, cycle by cycle. Differences are listed with the policy, the amount and what appears to be causing the gap, so your staff have something concrete to take back to the carrier. Items that don't match stay on an aged list until they clear.
Close lands on a date you can plan around
The close runs on a fixed calendar, agreed with you at the start and set around when your carrier statements and bank data actually arrive. The sample below is our normal shape for a brokerage with monthly direct bill cycles. The point is a date you can count on, not a moving target.
Year-end is a handoff, not a reconstruction
Because each month closes properly, year-end is a roll-up of work already done. Your external accountant receives a working paper file: reconciled accounts, supporting schedules, and the trust and carrier documentation behind them. We don't perform audits or reviews and we don't file your corporate return, so their independence stays intact.
Who does what
BrokerLedger does
- Code the month's transactions in Applied Epic, with agency bill and direct bill kept separate
- Reconcile operating, trust and credit card accounts
- Reconcile carrier statements and maintain the premiums payable schedule
- Enter accounts payable, apply receipts against receivables, and age both
- Post month-end accruals and adjusting entries
- Deliver the close package with a written note on anything that needs a decision
- Keep the year-end working paper file current through the year
Your brokerage does
- Approve and release payments. We prepare the run, you authorize it.
- Send carrier, bank and credit card statements we can't pull ourselves
- Set producer commission rates and tell us when they change
- Answer questions on unusual transactions inside the close window
- Own trust compliance decisions and any regulator filings, as the principal broker
- Keep your external accountant for year-end, tax filings and any assurance work
A sample monthly close calendar
Business days are counted from the first working day after period end. Your actual calendar is set around when your carrier statements and bank data arrive, and it's agreed before the first close.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Ongoing through the month | Payables entered and receipts applied as they arrive, so nothing waits for period end. |
| Business day 1 to 3 | Bank, trust and credit card activity pulled and coded. The prior period is locked to new entries. |
| Business day 3 to 5 | Carrier statements reconciled for the cycle. Premiums payable schedule updated and aged items rolled forward. |
| Business day 5 to 7 | Commission income reconciled to what carriers actually remitted. Producer splits calculated for the payout run. |
| Business day 7 | Trust bank reconciliation completed and the trust position compared against the trust liability it supports. |
| Business day 8 | Accruals and adjusting entries posted. Accounts payable aged and the payment run prepared for your approval. |
| Business day 10 | Close package delivered: profit and loss, balance sheet, trust position, carrier and commission exception lists, and a short written summary. |
How we get started
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Scoping call
We go through your Applied Epic setup, transaction volumes, carrier count, trust structure and where the books stand today. You get a written scope and price before any work starts.
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Access and read-only review
You grant access to Applied Epic, the bank and credit card portals, and payroll if it's in scope. We review recent periods without changing anything and report what we find.
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Cleanup plan, quoted separately
If prior periods need correcting, that's quoted apart from the monthly work so you can see catch-up cost and recurring cost as two numbers. Nothing gets restated without your sign-off.
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Opening balances agreed
We agree the opening trial balance with you and, where it matters, with your external accountant, so there's a defined point where our work starts.
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First close
We run the first month-end on the agreed calendar and review the package with you line by line. Report format and timing get adjusted after that first cycle.
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Standing monthly cycle
Close on the agreed date each month, with a standing check-in for questions and decisions.
What we need from you to start
- Applied Epic access with accounting module permissions
- Read-only bank, trust and credit card access, or a reliable statement feed
- The last twelve months of carrier statements, or portal access to pull them
- Your current chart of accounts and any mapping documentation
- Producer agreements and current commission split rates
- Your last completed year-end financial statements and the adjusting entries behind them
- Contact details for your external accountant
- Your trust account structure and the province you're licensed in
Is this the right fit?
A good fit
- Canadian brokerages running Applied Epic, or moving onto it
- Books that are months behind, or a bookkeeper who has left
- Brokerages where agency bill, direct bill and trust have blurred together in the ledger
- Principals who want a monthly number instead of a year-end one
- Owners preparing for a lender conversation, a valuation or a sale
Not what we do
- Audits, reviews and other assurance engagements. We don't provide assurance.
- Corporate tax returns and tax planning, which stay with your external accountant.
- Insurers and MGAs, whose accounting works differently from a retail brokerage.
- Brokerages that want the accounting kept in spreadsheets outside the management system.
Related reading
- Bookkeeping for insurance brokers The full guide to how a Canadian brokerage's books are put together.
- Month-end close for brokerages A focused close engagement for a brokerage that keeps day-to-day bookkeeping in-house; overlapping close work is scoped once.
- Premium trust reconciliation A focused trust engagement when it is separately scoped from monthly bookkeeping; the same monthly reconciliation is never billed twice.
- Insurance brokerage chart of accounts How the accounts should be structured for trust, payables and commission income.
- Agency bill vs direct bill accounting Why the two billing types are coded differently.
- What brokerage bookkeeping costs What drives the price of a monthly engagement.
- Should you outsource brokerage bookkeeping? In-house versus outsourced, and what changes either way.
- Pricing How monthly engagements are scoped and priced.
- Brokerage accounting glossary Every term used on this page, grouped by topic, with where it shows up in Applied Epic.
The CPA who builds your file knows brokerage accounting
BrokerLedger is CPA-led and works inside Applied Epic. Our services are shaped by how a brokerage's books actually move — agency bill versus direct bill, commission income, producer compensation — not what a generic small-business bookkeeper assumes.
Frequently Asked Questions
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