Abaque is based on Canada Revenue Agency’s extended list of financial statement items called GIFI. This item list is used to prepare financial statement information for businesses such as corporations and partnerships. It has been extended to sole proprietorships in order to establish a standardized approach to bookkeeping, regardless of the legal structure of the business.

The first step is to copy one of the 3 files containing the template spreadsheets to your Google Drive. To do this, you must already have a Google account.

1. Open a Google Drive session.

2. Open the folder containing the template spreadsheets.

3. Select the file corresponding to your business’s legal structure.

4. Press “Alt + A” or “Shift + F10” on your keyboard to open the “More actions” menu.

5. Select Make a copy.

6. A copy of the item will be created in “My Drive”. It will have the same name as the original document, preceded by “Copy of”.

7. Rename the file as you wish.

8. Open this new file in Google Sheets.

9. Click on Extensions > Abaque (it may take a few seconds for this menu to appear after opening the document). Click Install. Note that this sub-menu will not appear if the add-on is already installed.

10. Cell I3 in the “Chart of Accounts” spreadsheet, which contains the unique reference to the GIFI_21_BALANCE function, may display the error message “#NAME?” when use for the first time. If this error message persists, please click the refresh button or press the F5 key on your keyboard. You can force the add-on to load by clicking Extensions > Abaque > Help. If the error message continues, please close the window and wait a few minutes before repeating the initialization procedures, as it may take some time for the connection between the spreadsheet and the custom function to be set up by Google’s Spreadsheet service. This loading delay usually only happens when the spreadsheet is first created.

You can enter up to 10 journal entries on the “Journal” spreadsheet completely free of charge. These entries are processed in real time by the GIFI_21_BALANCE function. This allows you to familiarize yourself with the structure of the spreadsheets without needing to subscribe to the service. However, please note that you cannot modify the GIFI code and Account number (#) lists in the “Chart of Accounts” spreadsheet without a subscription.

The monthly subscription for this Software-as-a-Service function is Can$2.99 per file, payable annually via Interac e‑Transfer®. You can unsubscribe up to four months before the end of your subscription. Unused monthly billing cycles, minus an administration fee of Can$11.96 before taxes, will be refunded via Interac e-Transfer. There are no restrictions on the number of spreadsheets the file can contain, nor on the number of times the function is called within this file.