Business management and logistics in Quebec: the complete guide

Before choosing a tool, take a recent order, ideally one that caused trouble, and trace its path. Who received it? Where was it written down? Who checked the materials, planned the work, delivered, invoiced and confirmed the payment? At each handoff from one person to another, note what was passed on and what got lost.

Handoffs are where work gets lost most often: between the person who takes the order and the one who prepares it, between the shop that finishes and the office that invoices, between the invoice sent and the payment received. A service business follows the same path, with a visit, a quote and a job instead of manufacturing. The following table summarizes a typical path; keep the steps that exist in your business and add the ones that are missing.

For each step, ask yourself whether someone could pick up the file tomorrow, with its owner away, without calling them. Wherever the answer is no, you know where to start. The guide on work organization in your business applies this method to requests of every kind.

An order comes in by email, by phone or at the counter. The channel matters little, on one condition: the order must exist in a single official place. Set the rule with your team: an order that isn’t recorded there is not accepted yet. For each order, write down at least:

• the client and the person to contact;
• the product or service, with the quantity and options;
• the date the client wants and the date you promise;
• the agreed price or the reference quote;
• special conditions: delivery, installation, deposit;
• the person responsible for what comes next.

Don’t confuse the requested date with the promised date. The first is information. The second is a commitment, to be confirmed in writing after checking materials and the team’s capacity.

In the Workspace, Email opens your Gmail or Outlook inbox, with your categories and sender rules that file a client’s or a supplier’s messages in the right folder. In Documents, a form is built question by question, with required questions, so that every request arrives with the same information. The Pipeline then takes the order as a task: a title, a description, a Documents folder or file and a due date that puts a reminder in the Calendar. Labels per client group the orders from the same account.

Seraf can also create the task from a message. Review it: a price missing from the original message doesn’t become confirmed because it appears in a task.

Useful inventory answers two questions: what do we have on hand, and when do we need to order? For each item you track (raw material, part, finished product, supply or packaging), note its name or code, the unit of measure, the location, the quantity on hand, the threshold below which you must order, the usual supplier, its delivery time and the person who places the order.

Set the threshold from observed facts: what you use during the supplier’s delivery time, plus a margin for the unexpected. Start from actual usage over recent months, then adjust after every shortage or surplus.

Count critical items often rather than everything rarely: a short weekly count of the items that would stop work if they ran out reveals gaps in time. A full count is still needed at least once a year. The Canada Revenue Agency (new tab) says you need to do an annual inventory and that the value you place on your year-end inventory is important in determining your income. For a manufacturer, it includes raw materials, packaging material and supplies, and work in progress. Once you choose a valuation method, you have to keep using it in later years: choose it with your accountant.

When goods arrive, check the quantity, the condition and the packing slip before updating the stock. If you resell products, also look at their labelling: the Office québécois de la langue française (new tab) (in French) requires every inscription on a product offered in Quebec, and every document that comes with it, to be written in French.

The Inventory module is planned in the Workspace and still in development: its icon is visible on the home screen, half transparent, and does not open yet. In the meantime, a spreadsheet created in the Company space of Documents can serve as a stock sheet, with access set by team and its version history. A repeating event in the Calendar reminds you of the count, and a Pipeline task tracks each supplier order. There is no automatic stock alert: a named person applies the threshold rule.

A procedure makes sure a job is done the same way, whoever does it. Don’t try to write everything down: start with tasks that are frequent, costly when done wrong or known to only one person, such as receiving goods or month-end invoicing.

A good procedure fits on one page and always follows the same outline:

• the title and the expected result;
• the trigger for the task;
• the materials, access and documents needed;
• numbered steps, each starting with an action verb;
• the check: how to know the work is done right;
• what to do if there’s a problem, and whom to notify;
• the person responsible for the procedure and the date of its version.

Test it with someone who doesn’t know the task: every hesitation points to a missing or unclear step. Fix it, date the new version and take the old one out of circulation.

Language is regulated. According to the Office québécois de la langue française checklist (new tab) (in French), all communications addressed to staff must be at least in French, including work and training documents. Employers must also make available in French what a third party has written, such as a training manual from an outside supplier.

The Procedures module, under the name “Procedure creation”, is planned in the Workspace and still in development. In the meantime, write each procedure as a document in the Company space of Documents: comments collect corrections and the history keeps every version. For a repeated task, the checklist of a Pipeline task lists the steps to tick off, and the task can point to the procedure’s file.

In a manufacturing business, the manufacturing routing describes, in order, the operations needed to make a product. For each operation, note the workstation or person, the materials, the usual time measured on a few real orders, the check to perform and what passes to the next step. A service business can do the same exercise: visit, quote, preparation, job, verification.

Separate working time from waiting time: drying or a client approval keeps nobody busy, but it stretches the timeline. Also find the step that slows down all the others before speeding up the rest. Each step has a single owner, and its progress is described by an observable fact, such as “8 cabinets assembled out of 12”, rather than an estimated percentage.

The Manufacturing routings module is planned in the Workspace to describe your products’ manufacturing steps; it is still in development. In the meantime, a Pipeline project can carry those steps: tasks each given to one person with a date, followed in columns by status or on a timeline. You can start from a project template, with its stages ready, or ask Seraf to create your first project from a single sentence. The Pipeline also accepts your own fields, for example an order number or a material.

A deadline holds when it rests on verified capacity: work already in progress, materials still to arrive and waiting times. Keep a margin between the internal date and the promised date.

Hold a short check-in every week, at a set time: deadlines in the next two weeks, late steps, decisions waiting on a client and expected materials. Each line ends with an action, a person and a date.

Administrative deadlines deserve the same place. According to the legal obligations stemming from registration (new tab) published by the Government of Quebec, every enterprise registered in the enterprise register must file an annual updating declaration, during the period provided for it, whether or not there are changes; it then has 30 days following any change to file a current updating declaration. Add the tax and source deduction remittance dates your accountant confirms.

In the Workspace, a task past its due date lands on its own in the Pipeline’s Overdue list. A task’s due date puts a reminder in the Calendar, which also brings together the company’s deadlines: invoices to collect, invoices to pay and legal documents. An invoice issued in Seraf appears there on its own; an invoice made elsewhere is added by hand. Every morning, at the time you choose, the morning brief presents today’s actions and what awaits your decision, without sending or deciding anything for you.

An invoice should follow from a fact: an accepted delivery, a completed stage, a date set in the agreement. Note in the project, as soon as the order is confirmed, what will be invoiced and when: deposit, stage invoice, balance. That way, no delivered stage is left without an invoice.

Also distinguish its statuses: a draft is not an issued invoice, a sent invoice is not paid, and “it’s paid” doesn’t prove the money has arrived. The guide to tracking your projects and invoicing details these statuses and suggests a weekly review in seven questions.

Content matters too. Revenu Québec does not impose an invoice template (new tab) (in French), except in the restaurant and taxi sectors, but your clients registered for the GST and QST need certain information to support their input tax credits and input tax refunds. Invoices are also part of commercial documentation which, according to the Office québécois de la langue française, must be written at least in French.

The Finances space brings together issued and received invoices, payments to confirm and contracts. A contract starts from a Serafex template or your own, imported as DOCX; you check the exact copy the recipient will see, then the signer signs through a secure link. The annual bookkeeping ledger shows the GST and QST to remit. The Wallet in Settings accepts Interac transfers and cards through Stripe, paid directly to your business; Seraf never holds the money.

Seraf can prepare a draft invoice or contract; a send, a payment or a signature keeps its own confirmation. In Finances, viewing, preparing, editing and deciding are separate rights, granted file by file. For accounting or tax advice, see your accountant.

Good filing follows the questions your team asks: by client, then by order or project, if work always starts with a client’s name. Name files predictably, with the date, the client, the document type and the version. Also separate the document from its status: a drafted quote is not a sent quote, and a sent contract is not a signed one.

Before archiving or destroying anything, check retention periods. Revenu Québec requires you to keep GST and QST records and supporting documents (new tab) (in French) for six years after the end of the last year they relate to, and longer in the event of an objection or appeal. Your accountant can confirm the other periods that apply to your business.

Documents brings your files together in two spaces, Personal and Company, on your Google Drive or OneDrive, where they stay. Each file shows its type, status and date: a contract that is filed, sent or signed is recognizable at once. Seraf can find a file in the conversation, according to your account’s access; it does not see another person’s private documents. The guide to organizing your business documents as a team details naming, access and how to take over existing files.

“Everyone takes care of it” often means nobody does. For each recurring activity, name who prepares, who decides and who must be informed, with a backup for what can’t wait.

This example is meant to be adapted. Above all, check that no row has an empty cell in the Decides column.

Access follows roles. The Commission d’accès à l’information (new tab) (in French) points out that only authorized people, for whom personal information is necessary to carry out their duties, may have access to it. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (new tab) recommends a unique account for each user, only the permissions their duties require and managing the life cycle of accounts. The complete guide to Law 25 covers the rest.

In the Workspace’s Settings, each person receives a role, Owner, Administrator, Manager or Employee, the services they see and the approvals entrusted to them, such as approving payments or viewing HR files. An access change always requires explicit confirmation, and for now, only the company’s main account invites new members. In Messaging, departments and teams have their own threads, and no role gives access to other people’s private conversations.

Each Workspace space can be used directly, like ordinary software. Seraf steps in when you want to go faster: its panel opens on the page you are on and suggests the useful moves, such as finding a free slot in the Calendar or finding a document.

For a decision that calls for it, Seraf consults the four personalities of its Council: Operations, Evidence, Growth, plus Finance and legal. For an operational decision, such as accepting a large order with a tight deadline, they rely on facts from your Workspace, such as the calendar, invoices and the Pipeline. Operations asks whether the team has the capacity to do the work; Finance and legal asks what it costs, what it commits you to and what could go wrong. Seraf then brings you a single recommendation, with its reason and a next step. For a simple piece of information, it answers you directly.

When you confirm, the work goes to one of the six Workspace agents, the one with the right tools. Four of them deal directly with operations: Ordan follows tasks, stages and deadlines in the Pipeline; Aurel, invoices, accounting, tax and payroll; Neri, messaging, email and the calendar; Zadiel, contracts and corporate documents. No agent works without your confirmation, Aurel makes no payment and files nothing, Neri sends no message without your approval and Zadiel signs nothing in your name. The page Your AI executive team presents how this works in detail.

A deletion, an access change, a send or an action in an external tool always requires your explicit confirmation.

Here is a made-up situation to illustrate the method; it describes no Serafex client. A seven-person cabinet shop receives an order by email on a Monday for twelve tables for a restaurant’s patio, wanted in five weeks.

The sales lead creates the task in the Pipeline, with the requested date recorded as such. The stock sheet shows oak below the threshold, with a two-week delivery time at the supplier: an ordering task goes to the shop lead.

Before confirming, the owner asks Seraf whether the shop can meet the deadline. In the Council’s debate, Operations points out that finishing, with its drying time, is already busy those weeks; Finance and legal notes that the wood ties up money before any invoice. The recommendation: accept, with a deposit and a delivery date confirmed once the wood has arrived. The owner decides to accept on those terms.

The shop creates the project in the Pipeline with its stages: cutting, assembly, finishing and drying, inspection, delivery. The finishing checklist follows the procedure written in Documents. The deposit invoice is prepared in Finances, checked, then sent by the owner. The wood arrives three days late, but the planned margin absorbs the gap. On delivery, the balance invoice goes out the same day; when the client reports their transfer, the bookkeeper confirms it on receipt.

Every step has left a record you can find, from the project to the signed packing slip. The example shows one way to connect the steps, not a result achieved.

There’s no need to change everything at once. This plan moves forward one step a week, starting with the family of orders that comes up most often.

1. Week 1: the path. Trace the path of three recent orders, set the single entry point and the list of minimum information.
2. Week 2: inventory. List the critical items with their location, threshold, supplier and the person who orders, then do the first count.
3. Week 3: procedures and steps. Write three one-page procedures and break your most common product or service into steps.
4. Week 4: deadlines and roles. Put the company’s deadlines in the calendar, fill in the roles table, check everyone’s access and hold the first weekly review.

At the end of the month, check that every open order can be found in the same place, that a new person can follow your procedures without help and that every delivered stage has its invoice. Remove the rules that serve no decision. The Serafex Workspace base plan opens the spaces described in this guide; the planned modules will open when they are ready.

Talk to an advisor about your operations.