Being a fellow Canadian I strongly urge you to NOT have an accountant to take care of your accounting.

Instead commission both a bookkeeper and an accountant. Use the bookkeeper to manage your books, use your accountant for tax advice, dealing with the government on your behalf and for filing your taxes.

Primarily reason is because most accountants subcontract to bookkeepers anyways to manage your books and they charge you a markup to do so.

This not only makes it cheaper for you but it gives you the advantage of having TWO specialists who can keep the other in line. While an accountant will certainly be more knowledgeable with tax laws, if either he or the bookkeeper is screwing things up significantly in maintaining your finances the other should be able to point it out to you.

If you need some names for places in Alberta let me know. I'm in Ontario myself but I have a lot of business contacts in your neck of the woods and would be happy to find some referrals for you.

Send me an email at craig@holibyte.com if you're interested, otherwise I hope my advice was beneficial to you.