Statistics Canada has released the 2008 edition of Service Bulletin: Accounting Services, which contains industry highlights along with financial data including revenues, expenses, and operating profit margins. The publication also includes product information, data by type of client and by geographic region.
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If you like pretty, coloured graphs, see our own, based on the same data.
The highlights of the StatsCan report are as follows:
• In 2008, the operating revenue of the Canadian accounting services industry totalled $12.5 billion, up 10.3% from 2007. This growth rate was in line with the double digit growths of 2005 (13.6%) and 2006 (11.6%), but higher than 2.5% growth in 2007.
• In 2008, auditing, certification, compilation, review, bookkeeping and payroll services made up 60% of the industry’s total sales of goods and services. Taxation services were responsible for 25% of the total. The remainder was divided among management consulting services (7%), insolvency and receivership services (2%) and other goods and services (6%). These proportions have remained relatively steady over time.
• Every province had an increase in operating revenue between 2007 and 2008. The highest growth rates were observed in New Brunswick (25.5%), Alberta (22.4%) and British Columbia (18.1%). The growth rates were more subdued in Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut (a combined growth of 0.7%), Newfoundland and Labrador (1.9%), Quebec (5.2%) and Ontario (5.9%).
• In 2008, the largest share of the accounting services industry’s operating revenue (41.6%) was earned by Ontario firms, followed by Quebec (17.8%), Alberta (16.3%) and British Columbia (14.9%).
• The accounting services industry is characterized by its small number of high-revenue firms. The 20 largest firms generate about half of the industry’s operating revenue, expenses and profit over time.
• In 2008, salaries, wages and employee benefits were again the fastest-growing operating expense item, representing 56% of total operating expenses. The total cost of remuneration is even higher if other labour costs are factored in, representing 66% of total operating expenses.
• The industry’s operating profit margin before taxes edged down slightly from 28.8% in 2007 to 28.6% in 2008.
