There’s no escape.
At some point in the life of your business, you’ll need to interact with the government.
It’s no secret what a challenge it can be to find the right place, the right number, the right person – and then get the right answer. The toughest job of all is often pinpointing the right place to start.
However, the federal government is trying to make things easier. It has created a gateway, a single access point to help guide you through what can often be a maze of information.
BusinessGateway.ca is a portal for services for Canadian businesses. Many of the answers you’re looking for can be obtained with a few clicks of the mouse.
Traditionally, you needed to know what department you had to contact in order to get the process started. With the government being such a humongous entity, even the number of possible frequently asked questions (FAQ’s) could match the size of your local phone directory.
To make life easier the site is driven by topic areas, rather than departments, which are hyperlinked to a specific area. There are 10 listed on the main portion of the home page.
To illustrate, the first topic listed is “business start-up.” The section not only addresses registration and taxation, but also being an entrepreneur, financing, doing business on the Internet and even how to write a business plan.
Other major topics include: tax, regulations, business statistics, mergers/ acquisitions, bankruptcy, financing, export/import, innovation and selling to the government. The latter topic includes valuable information on the electronic tendering and bidding process, something I’ve always wanted to get to know, but wasn’t sure where to find the appropriate information.
Sidebars on the home page support the major topic areas. The key resources sidebar, for example, covers areas such as e-forms – electronic forms that you can download, FAQ’s, government contacts and programs. What’s admirable is that the information is organized in order of topic area and not by form number. That way, you you can easily find and print the various forms that are related to Business Start-up, for example.
Like every good site, BusinessGateway.ca has a list of its most popular links. It’s no surprise that heading up the list are GST/HST registration and filing, corporate income tax and tax credits, which all refer viewers back to the appropriate Canada Customs and Revenue Agency website. One notable item on this list is entitled “ebiz.enable.” It is an interesting site to help guide organizations through the issues of implement e-business strategies.
And you get tools, lots of tools, enough to make Tim Allen proud.
The business tools link guides you to a number of helpful resources, including an interactive business planner that you can use right from your web browser; links to Canadian patent and trademark databases; financial ratio calculators; and a guide on preparing a marketing plan.
In addition, you can link to any of the provincial and territorial Canadian Business Service Centres (www.cbsc.org), and to government publications, government departments, agencies and their respective sites.
Even if you’re not looking for something specific, you can easily spend hours perusing the vast amounts of information.
I strongly suggest adding this link to your bookmarks or favourites – I guarantee it will come in handy some day.
Some of the information and links provided are new. Much of it was already there – it’s now just a little easier to get to. What’s nice is that the navigation makes sense.
Of course, the site is available on both of Canada’s official languages and a low-resolution access is available for those on a reduced CPU horsepower diet.
Web Watch:
www.businessgateway.ca
