Limo and chauffeur bookkeeping: the gratuity line decides your HST

Deposits and retainers sit in deferred revenue until the car rolls

A deposit taken for a September wedding is not September’s money just because it lands in your account in March — it is a liability until the trip is actually delivered, the same way a banquet hall treats a booking deposit. Corporate accounts sometimes pay a monthly retainer against a block of hours instead of billing per trip, and that retainer is earned down job by job, not recognized on the day the cheque clears. Books that record deposits as revenue on receipt overstate income in the collection month and understate it later, a pattern that looks fine until a quiet quarter follows a big deposit month and the numbers stop telling the truth.

Cancellations need the same discipline. A cancellation inside your posted notice window is typically forfeited and becomes revenue on the date of forfeiture, not the date of the original booking; a cancellation with proper notice is a refund out of the liability account, never a reversal against revenue you already recognized. Written cancellation terms on every contract are what turn this into a routine bookkeeping entry instead of an argument with a client two weeks before an event.

Gratuities and administrative fees are not the same line for HST

A mandatory gratuity or service charge you add to an invoice is generally treated as part of the taxable price of the ride, carrying HST the same as the base fare. A tip a passenger hands the chauffeur voluntarily, with no invoice line requiring it, is generally not part of your taxable supply at all — it belongs to the chauffeur, not the company. Many contracts blur this by labelling a mandatory fifteen or twenty percent addition a “gratuity” when it functions as a service charge the company keeps a share of, and that function, not the word on the invoice, is what should drive the HST treatment.

Corporate accounts run on terms — the books need an aging ledger

Corporate clients on a standing account are usually invoiced monthly and paid on thirty- or sixty-day terms, which means the trip happened weeks before the cash does. Recording revenue only when the deposit lands makes a growing corporate book look like a slow month, when it is really a growing receivable. We recognize revenue when the trip is delivered and invoiced, then age the receivable separately, so an account running thirty days behind shows up as a collections item instead of vanishing into what looks like a soft quarter. Fuel surcharges and after-hours fees written into the account agreement should post on the same schedule, not as a lump-sum true-up at renewal.

Every vehicle needs its own ledger, not a fleet-wide average

A stretch limousine, a full-size SUV, and a sedan carry different financing, different commercial insurance riders, and very different detailing and repair bills — a blended fleet expense number hides which car is actually earning its keep. We track fuel, financing or lease payments, insurance, detailing, and repairs by vehicle, matched against the trips that specific car ran, so replacement and pricing decisions rest on real per-unit numbers instead of a guess. Municipal limousine licence fees and airport permit fees belong in the same per-vehicle file, since both are typically issued per plate.

Reconcile the dispatch log to the books every month

Your dispatch or booking system — a dedicated limousine platform or a general scheduling tool — holds the real trip list: date, client, hours booked, driver assigned. Tying that list to invoiced revenue each month catches trips that were run but never billed, a leak that grows quietly in any business built on phone calls and text confirmations rather than point-of-sale terminals. For the filings this record feeds, see our tax services for limo and chauffeur companies, and for how the chauffeurs behind these trips get classified and paid, our chauffeur payroll page.