Outsourced Finance · Ontario

Your finance department, on the books and on your side.

Cowen & Co. provides monthly bookkeeping, financial reporting, and fractional controller services to owner-operated businesses across Ontario. CPA-led delivery. AI-augmented workflows. Plain language. No surprises at year-end.

Book a discovery call → See our services
Cowen & Co. mark
CPA · CA Chartered Professional Accountant, Ontario
Fixed Monthly fees, no hourly billing games
5 Days to a clean monthly close
1 Trusted relationship for your full finance stack
The Problem

Most owner-operators are flying blind.

Your bookkeeper handles the bare minimum. Your accountant sees you once a year. Receipts pile up, HST filings get rushed, and you find out how the business actually performed about ten months too late to do anything about it.

It does not have to work this way. We built Cowen & Co. to give growing businesses the kind of monthly financial visibility, control, and strategic guidance that used to require a full-time CFO and a back office of three. Modern workflows, real CPA judgment, and a single trusted relationship.

Services

Three tiers. One trusted relationship.

Each engagement is a fixed monthly fee with a clear scope. No surprise invoices. No hourly billing games. Upgrade or scale back as your business changes.

Foundation

For sole proprietors and single-entity small businesses under $500K in revenue.

$750 to $2,400 / month
  • Monthly QBO close and bank reconciliation
  • HST/GST filing preparation and submission
  • Receipt capture through Dext automation
  • Monthly P&L and balance sheet
  • Books prepared to support a clean year-end with your external CPA
  • Quarterly review call
Most Popular

Operator

For established businesses with $500K to $3M in revenue and 5 to 25 employees.

$2,400 to $4,500 / month
  • Everything in Foundation
  • Payroll oversight and source deduction filings
  • AR and AP management
  • Monthly financial review call with commentary
  • Standard KPI dashboard for your business
  • T2 preparation coordination with partner CPA firm
  • Books prepared to support external review when needed

Controller

For multi-entity operations with $3M to $15M in revenue and complex finance needs.

$4,500 to $12,000 / month
  • Everything in Operator
  • Consolidated multi-entity reporting
  • Board-ready monthly financial packages
  • Standard budgeting and cash flow reporting
  • Lender and bank liaison support on routine matters
  • Working papers prepared to make external audits, reviews, or compilations efficient
  • Scheduled monthly strategic check-in
Included in your monthly fee

Each tier is a fixed scope of recurring work delivered on a predictable monthly cycle. The fee covers the deliverables listed above plus brief email exchanges about routine matters as they come up.

Available, billed separately

Some work falls outside the monthly engagement and is scoped and billed on its own: custom financial models or one-off reports, due diligence support for transactions, special projects (system migrations, restructurings, financing applications), tax planning engagements, on-demand advisory time beyond the included review calls, and dedicated work during compressed timelines. We quote these projects in advance so there are no surprises.

Who We Serve

Built for businesses that have outgrown the basics.

We work best with owner-operators who want a trusted financial partner, not a transaction processor. The verticals where we add the most value:

Trades & Construction

HST complexity, holdback accounting, job costing, and progress billing. We speak the language of contractors, electricians, HVAC, and specialty trades.

Dental & Healthcare

Multi-associate practices, hygiene production tracking, insurance receivables, and the unique cash flow patterns of professional practices.

Restaurants & Hospitality

Seasonality, tip reporting, COGS tracking by category, and multi-location consolidation. Built for the Wasaga, Collingwood, and Blue Mountain corridor.

Professional Services

Law firms, consulting practices, and healthcare professionals. WIP accounting, regulatory compliance, and partner distribution tracking.

Real Estate & Property

Property managers, real estate holding companies, and small-to-mid portfolios. Per-property reporting, capital cost tracking, and HST elections on commercial properties.

Owner-Managed SMBs

Any privately held Ontario business between $500K and $15M in revenue where the owner wants real financial visibility instead of year-end surprises.

The Cowen Difference

Why owners choose us over a traditional bookkeeper.

We are not a bookkeeping firm with a fancy website. We are a finance function built around the way owner-operated businesses actually work in 2026.

i

CPA-led, not CPA-adjacent

Every engagement is overseen by a Chartered Professional Accountant whose background includes six years of Ontario public practice (personal and corporate tax plus audit, review, and compilation engagements), eight years of municipal performance analytics for the City of Barrie, and current CFO responsibilities for a Canadian multi-entity group. That depth is in your monthly close, not just your year-end.

ii

AI-augmented, human-judged

We use modern AI workflows to handle the repetitive work: bank feed categorization, receipt processing, draft variance commentary, reconciliation prep. The judgment, the relationships, and the strategic guidance stay with experienced humans who know your business.

iii

Monthly clarity, not annual surprises

You will know how your business performed within five business days of month-end, every month. With commentary. With the variances explained. With the questions surfaced before they become problems.

iv

Fixed-fee, no hourly games

One predictable monthly fee. No clock-watching. No invoices for picking up the phone. Pricing is transparent, scoped at the start, and adjusted only when the business changes meaningfully.

v

Year-end without the scramble

We partner with established Ontario CPA firms for T2 filings and any compilation reports your lender requires. You get a clean year-end with no last-minute fire drills, and a single point of contact through the whole process.

vi

Built in Ontario, for Ontario

HST, WSIB, EHT, payroll source deductions, Ontario corporate tax. We know the rules because we have been operating under them for our own multi-entity group for years. No offshore handoffs. No language gaps. No "let me check with my supervisor."

Cowen & Co. Est. 2026 · Wasaga Beach, Ontario
About the Firm

A finance practice built from the operator's side of the desk.

Cowen & Co. was founded by Darrell Cowen, CPA, CA, who brings a finance career spanning three disciplines. From 2008 to 2014, Darrell practiced in Ontario public accounting with engagements split between personal and corporate tax and assurance work, including audit, review, and compilation engagements across private companies and not-for-profits. From 2014 to 2022, he served as Financial Analyst and Performance Analyst at the City of Barrie, supporting executive management with municipal budgeting, financial reporting, and performance measurement. Since 2022, he has been Chief Financial Officer of a Canadian multi-entity corporate group operating in regulated environments.

Beyond the CPA designation earned in 2014, Darrell completed the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax Course with a final project in international tax, and previously held the Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certified Government Auditing Professional (CGAP) designations.

The combination of public practice fundamentals, sophisticated analytical work in a regulated public sector environment, and current executive financial leadership in complex private operations means we know what good financial operations look like in every type of environment owner-operators face.

We are based in Wasaga Beach and serve clients across Simcoe, Grey, Bruce, and the Greater Toronto area. Engagements are remote-first with periodic on-site work where it makes sense.

"We do not sell bookkeeping. We sell financial clarity. The bookkeeping is just how we earn the right to give it to you."
Get in Touch

Let's talk about where your books are now.

A 30-minute discovery call. No pitch. We will ask about your current setup, what is working, what is not, and where we might fit. If we are a fit, we will follow up with a written proposal within three business days. If we are not, we will tell you that too, and point you to someone who is.

Email hello@cowenco.ca
Office Wasaga Beach, Ontario
Service Area Ontario, remote-first

Thank you. We will be in touch within one business day.