Financial Services for
Hamilton Businesses.
A senior CPA-backed team delivering Fractional CFO, bookkeeping, business plan and financial modeling services to Hamilton manufacturers, health-tech startups, food-and-bev producers, real estate investors, trades operators and creative SMBs — from Downtown Hamilton and the Mountain through Ancaster, Dundas, Stoney Creek and Waterdown.
Built for Hamilton's Industrial & Innovation Reality.
Hamilton runs on manufacturing, health-tech spun out of McMaster, food-and-bev creators, real estate investors chasing better cap rates than the GTA, and thousands of owner-operator SMBs. Our finance work is built for exactly that reality.
CPA-supervised, senior-led
Every Hamilton engagement is led by a senior CPA. No junior handoffs, no offshore delegation. You work with someone who's already run finance for Hamilton businesses at your stage.
Manufacturing & industrial depth
Job costing, WIP, standard costing, capacity utilization, per-SKU margin, SR&ED for R&D-intensive manufacturers. We know how to make manufacturing books actually tell you which lines make money.
Health-tech & McMaster spin-out fluency
McMaster spin-outs, medical devices, life sciences and clinical-adjacent startups. SR&ED, IRAP, grant financials, regulatory-pathway modeling, cap tables and seed-to-Series-A CFO support.
Food-and-bev & craft producers
Restaurants, breweries, distilleries, food processors. Prime cost, batch costing, inventory accounting, AGCO and excise compliance. Hamilton's food-and-bev scene deserves finance work that keeps up.
Fixed fees, no billable-hour games
Fixed monthly retainer for CFO and bookkeeping. Fixed project fee for business plans and models. What we quote is what you pay — no scope creep, no invoice surprises, no six-minute increments.
All four services under one roof
Bookkeeping, CFO, business plan and financial modeling from the same team, using the same numbers, telling the same story. No coordinating three firms who each know a piece of your business.
What Hamilton Businesses Actually Face.
Hamilton is one of the most distinctive business markets in Ontario. It carries the DNA of Canada's industrial heritage — steel, metal fabrication, heavy manufacturing — but the modern Hamilton economy is much wider than that. Alongside a serious manufacturing base that never went away, the city has built one of Ontario's strongest health-tech and life sciences ecosystems, a thriving food-and-beverage creative scene, a growing real estate investment market as GTA capital moves west for better cap rates, and thousands of owner-operator SMBs across trades, professional services and retail. Each of those business types has a distinct finance reality.
Hamilton manufacturers — from legacy metal-shop operators to modern advanced manufacturing, machining, industrial equipment and food processing — need serious operating discipline. Job costing, WIP schedules, raw materials inventory, standard costing and capacity utilization are the difference between knowing your real margin per unit and running the business on aggregated averages that hide the truth. Many Hamilton manufacturers also qualify for meaningful SR&ED claims for R&D-intensive work — claims that routinely go unclaimed because generic accountants don't know what qualifies.
The health-tech and life sciences ecosystem anchored by McMaster University, McMaster Innovation Park, Innovation Factory (iF), St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, Hamilton Health Sciences and the surrounding clinical research base has produced a real cluster of medical devices, digital health, diagnostics and biotech startups. These companies live and die on non-dilutive funding — SR&ED, IRAP, provincial and federal health-tech grants — and on cap tables and investor-grade financial models that build in regulatory pathway realities. Generic finance work rarely covers any of that.
Hamilton's food-and-bev scene — restaurants and cafes along James Street North and Locke Street, craft breweries, distilleries, specialty food processors — has transformed the city over the last decade. But most of these businesses run on thin margins, complex inventory, seasonal cash cycles and licensing regimes (AGCO, excise tax, food safety) that need experienced finance discipline to actually make money. Meanwhile, Hamilton's real estate market has attracted a generation of GTA-based investors chasing multi-family, mixed-use and industrial-flex product at more attractive cap rates than Toronto or Mississauga — deals that need defensible pro formas to actually close.
Layered on all of that: Hamilton is owner-operator country. Full-time CFO compensation in the Golden Horseshoe runs into six figures very quickly, and most Hamilton businesses under $20M in revenue simply cannot justify that hire. What they need is senior finance leadership at Fractional pricing, industry-specific expertise, and a partner that already knows Hamilton's mix of manufacturing, health-tech, food-and-bev and real estate realities. Ledgerive was built for exactly that.
Signs Your Hamilton Business Needs Ledgerive.
Not every business needs every service. Here's when each of the four Ledgerive service lines is the right answer for a Hamilton business — and how to tell.
You Need a Fractional CFO When…
Your business is growing past the point where the owner can hold the entire finance function in their head — but a full-time Golden Horseshoe CFO hire isn't the right answer yet.
- Your manufacturing, health-tech or food-and-bev business is scaling and cash flow decisions are getting tight
- You're preparing to approach BDC, a Canadian bank, or an equipment lender for the first time
- You're a McMaster spin-out or early-stage health-tech company preparing for a seed or Series A raise
- Owner, family shareholders or investors want monthly reporting that actually shows what's happening
You Need Ledgerive Bookkeeping When…
Your books are behind, wrong, or eating time you should be spending running the business — and every month that goes by makes it worse.
- You're months or years behind on your books and CRA correspondence is stacking up
- HST filings are late, wrong, or you don't know if they're right
- Your current bookkeeper isn't returning calls, or you've never had one
- You need clean books to apply for financing, sell the business, close a raise, or bring on a partner
You Need a Business Plan When…
You have a real deadline — a lender application, a grant window, an investor meeting, or an immigration filing — and the plan has to be strong enough to actually get approved.
- You're applying for BDC financing, CSBFP or a Canadian bank loan
- You're a health-tech startup preparing an IRAP, SR&ED strategy or grant application
- You're preparing an Ontario PNP Entrepreneur Stream or Start-Up Visa application
- A previous business plan was rejected and you need it rebuilt to actually get approved
You Need a Financial Model When…
Someone with money — investor, lender, buyer, partner — is going to look at your numbers, and the spreadsheet you built at 2 a.m. won't survive their questions.
- You're a health-tech or SaaS founder raising capital and need an investor-grade model that stands up to due diligence
- You're underwriting a Hamilton real estate deal and need a defensible IRR / cash-on-cash / cap rate analysis
- You're a manufacturer negotiating with a lender and need multi-year projections tied to real drivers
- You're considering a major decision — new facility, big equipment purchase, acquisition — and need scenario analysis before you commit
Four Services. One Senior Team. All Delivered in Hamilton.
Each of the four Ledgerive service lines is delivered end-to-end for Hamilton clients — separately when you need one, bundled when you need more.
Fractional CFO in Hamilton
Executive-level finance leadership for Hamilton manufacturers, health-tech startups, food-and-bev operators and family-owned SMBs — without the full-time hire. Cash flow, lender and investor relationships, budgeting, board and owner reporting every week, every month.
- 13-week rolling cash flow forecast
- Monthly owner / board / investor reporting package
- BDC, bank, IRAP & SR&ED strategy support
- Weekly leadership call + always-on Slack
Bookkeeping in Hamilton
Monthly bookkeeping, catch-up bookkeeping, HST filings and payroll for Hamilton businesses — tuned to manufacturing, health-tech, food-and-bev, trades, real estate and retail realities. QuickBooks Online, Xero, Wave or Sage, reviewed by a CPA.
- Monthly bookkeeping in QBO or Xero
- HST / GST filing & CRA correspondence
- SR&ED-ready expense tagging for tech & manufacturing
- Hamilton payroll & T4 processing
Business Plans in Hamilton
Lender-ready and investor-ready business plans for Hamilton founders — BDC, CSBFP, banks, IRAP, health-tech grants, Ontario PNP, Start-Up Visa, VC and grant plans written for exactly what each Canadian reviewer wants to see.
- BDC / CSBFP / bank loan plans
- IRAP & SR&ED strategy narratives
- Health-tech & life sciences grant plans
- Ontario PNP, Start-Up Visa & VC plans
Financial Modeling in Hamilton
Investor-grade financial models for Hamilton founders — manufacturing unit economics, health-tech models with regulatory pathway assumptions, Hamilton real-estate pro formas, food-and-bev models, cap tables and fundraise models built to survive due diligence.
- Manufacturing per-unit & capacity models
- Health-tech & life-sciences models with SR&ED impact
- Hamilton real-estate pro formas
- DCF, cap table & fundraise models
Hamilton Industries & Neighborhoods We Cover.
Deep specialization across the industries that actually define Hamilton's economy — and physical presence available across every Hamilton neighborhood on request.
Hamilton industries we serve
Our deepest Hamilton expertise — click any vertical for the industry landing page.
Hamilton neighborhoods we cover
Remote-first for everyone. On-site quarterly reviews available across every area below on request.
Remote-First, Hamilton-Ready.
The engagement rhythm every Hamilton client can expect — designed around your Slack, your calendar, and your Hamilton location.
Free 30-min discovery call
We walk through your business, your Hamilton context, your priorities and your deadlines. Honest answer on fit inside the call itself — not a follow-up email.
Written proposal in 48 hours
Scope, deliverables, timeline and fixed fee — all in writing. If the scope needs to change, we redraft once for free. What we quote is what you pay.
Start in 3–5 business days
NDA signed. Access granted to your Hamilton QuickBooks, Xero, bank feeds and prior financials. First deliverable — usually a cash snapshot — lands the same week.
Weekly cadence + on-site
Standing weekly call, always-on Slack, monthly close by the 15th, quarterly business reviews on-site across Hamilton when you want them. No help-desk queue, no offshore relay.
What Hamilton Founders Say After 90 Days.
Our metal-fab business had grown to $8M and I couldn't tell which jobs were actually profitable anymore. Ledgerive built us real job costing, monthly WIP reconciliation and a reporting package I can actually read. Six months in and we've walked away from three loss-making customer relationships we didn't even know were losing us money.
We're a McMaster spin-out and had never properly claimed SR&ED in three years of building. Ledgerive drafted the technical narratives with our engineers, filed the claim clean, and it survived CRA review without a single query. That single line item extended our runway by eight months — before we even started the Series A conversation.
Our brewery had beautiful beer and terrible margins. Ledgerive rebuilt our batch costing, fixed our excise reporting and gave us a real gross margin per SKU for the first time. We repriced three flagship beers within a month and our overall margin went up nine points in the following quarter.
I was underwriting a Hamilton multi-family deal and my previous pro forma didn't hold up to bank scrutiny. Ledgerive rebuilt it with defensible cap rate assumptions, real vacancy sensitivity and interest rate scenarios. Bank financing approved four weeks later — and I've used the same model structure for two more Hamilton acquisitions since.
Questions Hamilton Businesses Ask.
Straight answers to the questions that come up on nearly every Hamilton discovery call.
Do you have an office in Hamilton?
Which Hamilton industries do you specialize in?
Are you familiar with Hamilton-specific business programs?
Do Hamilton businesses need a full-time CFO or a Fractional CFO?
Do you work with Hamilton manufacturers?
Can you help Hamilton health-tech and McMaster spin-outs?
Do you work with Hamilton food-and-bev and craft breweries?
How is Hamilton different from Toronto or Mississauga for finance work?
How quickly can you get started with a Hamilton business?
Do you sign an NDA before the discovery call?
How do you handle pricing?
Ready to get finance right for your Hamilton business?
30 minutes. No pitch. Just a real conversation about your Hamilton business, your next 12 months, and whether we're the right team to deliver the finance work behind them.