The  Ontario regulation requiring “work from home whenever possible ” has recently been lifted,  and the Covid-19 hospitalization rate in Ontario has been starting to decline.  Hence we have again returned  to working primarily from the office.

Stringent facemask  and distancing protocols remain  in place at the office to minimize the risk of Covid-19  spread to our staff and clients. Our staff are required to confirm daily, prior to entering the office,   that they satisfy the provincial Covid-19 screening guidelines

Client meetings are preferably conducted by telephone or video call. However,   in-person meetings at the office may also be arranged. If you wish to have an in-person meeting please contact Julia or Robert to set it up.

Facemasks are to be worn by all present at such meetings. Clients will be asked screening questions to confirm that they are free of Covid symptoms,  have not had recent contact with people with an active case of Covid, and are compliant with current  quarantining rules  related to any recent out-of-country travel.

 

Our recent change of web and email hosting service providers  for our stavreff.com domain has been completed, and our stavreff.com email addresses are back in action for the staff who had them previously.

The new service supports SSL/TLS encryption for emails  during transmission from our staff to our email email server. So now our stavreff.com emails are using the same security standard as our stavreff.ca emails

That said, we  urge your to use our stavreff.ca email addresses for all your correspondence with us, since these addresses are our primary ones.

Please keep in mind that even with SSL/TLS  regular  email has inherent security limitations. So consider using “end to end” encryption as an added precaution for any particularly sensitive information

Our stavreff.com web hosting is set up to automatically redirect to our stavreff.ca website.

 

Our firm is now incorporated as a Professional Corporation and our firm name is now “Stavreff & Associates CPA Professional Corporation”.

Julia P Stavreff is the president and public accounting license  holder of the firm.

Personal  income tax season,  is here, and it is time to get  your supporting  information to our office.  See our Personal Income Tax Checklist for 2020.

Note that the filing deadline for personal income tax returns  has reverted to the standard date of April 30 .  Self-employed people and their spouses have a bit longer and  must file their personal income tax by June 15

________________________

Considerable time has elapsed  since our March 22 post about Covid-19 Mitigation Measures. These  measures remain in force, along with  a now mandatory facemask policy,  installation  of HEPA  air filters to reduce Aerosol transmission, and stronger guidance to conduct client meeting by telephone or Zoom whenever possible, rather than in-person.

In the month of September, due to the  improving Covid-19 situation  at that time our staff returned to working mainly  from the office rather than from home.   Being an accounting firm we are considered to be an essential service, and as such are allowed to continue our operations. However,  in view of the current  Covid-19 situation in Toronto , we have more recently  returned to working primarily from home  in order to minimize the risk of Covid -19 transmission among our staff  at the office

Our staff are all equipped to respond to emails and access our client data files remotely using VPN, but they   still do drop in at the office  from time to time, to pick up paper mail, to pick up and drop off  other papers, and to do photocopying , scanning, printing  and filing.

Our clients  are encouraged to send correspondence and  other materials by email as much as possible.    However,  paper-based  mail and other written  materials can be dropped off during regular business hours  in the drop-box located at our main office entrance.

Our business telephone number remains   operational and calls to the office number are answered  remotely by our office manager  Jenny when she is working from home.

On March 23, 2020, The Government of Ontario  ordered  ordered all non-essential stores and services to close at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday March 24 in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19.  CBC news has published a detailed “Ontario Government List of Essential Businesses” which you may find helpful.

In response to the unfolding COVID-19 situation in Ontario and the advice of the health authorities,  we  are closing our office effective Sunday March 22,  for a week. Our work continues,  but  all of our staff are now working from home.

Our Staff  all have their  business email accessible from home. The best way to reach them for online discussion, or to arrange a telephone meeting,  is  via their business email addresses, (which are shown on the “Contact us” page of this website). Paper  documentation that you may need to convey to us  can be dropped off by yourselves or couriered to our business address and left in the drop-box located just inside our main entrance.

Terri Heggum-Allen’s  firm, Loftus Allen CPA, with whom we share premises,  have the majority of their staff working remotely; but two or three of them are  continuing  to work out of the  office for now. If you are planning to do a drop-off, we recommend that you first contact Julia or one of our staff  people by e-mail. If you arrive at the office for a drop-off, and find the doors are locked , call our office number 416-621-8050, or the Loftus Allen office number 416-626-7333.  If someone is there, they  can let you in for the drop-off.

____________________________

For both Julia Stavreff CPA and Loftus Allen CPA  the following Office Rules  are in place for COVID-19 mitigation:

OFFICE RULES FOR COVID-19 MITIGATION

To combat the spread of COVID-19 and protect our clients and our office staff we expect all staff to do the following:

• Maintain a 6 foot “social distance” from other staff and clients.
• No touching , handshaking, etc.
• Work only in your own workstation.
• After using common areas such as washrooms, kitchen area, and meeting rooms wipe down anything you’ve touched, and wash your hands with soap and water
• Wipe surfaces before and after client visits (or internal meetings) in Boardroom or Meeting Room.
• Before booking a meeting , verify with clients that they have not been out of country in the preceding two weeks, have not been diagnosed as having Covid-19, and have not met in the past two weeks with someone who has COVID-19. In any of these cases, under health authority guidance they are expected to self-quarantine. Defer the in-person meeting and/or recommend a telephone meeting instead.
• Also verify with any clients wanting an in-person meeting that they not have COVID symptoms (basically the same as a bad cold or flu). If they have you should again defer the in-person meeting and/or recommend a telephone meeting instead.
• In general, ask clients to meet and discuss matters over the telephone, rather than in-person, whenever possible.
• Ensure that any of your clients visiting our office respect social distancing while here and encourage them to do so even when not at our offices
• For drop-offs of paperwork, advise the clients to use our drop-boxes near the main office entrance rather than handing them to a receptionist. If they arrive and find the office doors locked, they may call the office telephone numbers (Loftus Allen 416-626-7333, Julia P Stavreff CA 416-621-8050) ; someone may be here who can let them to access the drop boxes (which are located in the front hallway just inside the office).
• Even when away from the office, you and your family are strongly encourage to follow the general Health Authority guidance on Social Distancing. (See Toronto Public Health “COVID -19 Fact Sheet” which is posted in various places in the office.

Julia Stavreff    Terri Heggum-Allen

____________________________

Several of our clients have been enquiring about the   Canadian Government   COVID-19 Response plans  that were announced today in a televised address  by the prime minister.

The following link provides detailed written information that you may find helpful: :

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2020/03/canadas-covid-19-economic-response-plan-support-for-canadians-and-businesses.html

______________________

 

In order to facilitate a security upgrade of  our email and our website, we are changing our primary internet domain name from stavreff.com to stavreff.ca. Please direct your emails to our staff to the new stavreff.ca email addresses shown on our “contacts” page. The  new email addresses are the same as previously, except that the domain name part of the address is changed to stavreff.ca.

Our new  website address is https://stavreff.ca.  As of March 25, 2019 we are automatically redirecting  www.stavreff.com to https://stavreff.ca. This is a transitional measure and  we  recommend that you access the new website directly using the new address.  It suffices to enter stavreff.ca in your web browser since  the prefix https:// is added automatically.