About
A small Canadian product that does one job properly.
What is SimpleLoonie?
SimpleLoonie is AI receipt-scanning and expense-tracking software for Canadian small businesses, built and operated from Ontario, Canada. It reads receipts and invoices, separates GST, HST, PST and QST by province, converts foreign currency to CAD at the transaction-date rate, generates invoices, and exports to Excel or CSV. It runs as a shared service at simpleloonie.ca, and as a private instance we deploy for organisations that need their own database and keys.
- Based in
- Ontario, Canada
- Privacy law
- PIPEDA
- Category
- Receipt scanning & expense tracking
- Market
- Canada, en-CA
- Pricing
- Canadian dollars
- Contact
- info@shinobimedia.ca
Why it exists
Most expense software is built for a single-rate tax system and adapted for Canada afterwards. The adaptation usually stops at a "tax" field. That one shortcut is why a British Columbia receipt loses the distinction between the 5% you can claim back and the 7% you cannot, why a Quebec receipt gets recorded at the wrong rate, and why a US subscription ends up converted at whatever the rate was on the day someone did the books.
SimpleLoonie starts from the Canadian case. GST, HST, PST and QST are separate fields. The province travels with the transaction. Foreign currency converts at the transaction-date rate and stores the rate it used. Prices are in Canadian dollars because the customers are.
Where your data actually goes
SimpleLoonie is operated from Ontario under Canada's privacy law, PIPEDA, but the shared cloud service runs on Google Cloud in the United States, uploaded files sit in Cloudflare R2, and receipts are read by AI providers in the United States and the European Union. Every provider is named in the privacy policy. If your records cannot live there, we can set up a private instance deployed in the region you specify, against a database and an AI provider key you own.
We put that on this page rather than only in the legal text because it is the question a careful buyer asks and the one marketing copy is most tempted to fudge. The full provider-by-provider list, including what each one receives, is in the privacy policy, and what the AI does with a receipt is set out in how we use AI.
What SimpleLoonie is not
- Not a tax filing service. It records what your receipts say; it does not file returns.
- Not a replacement for an accountant. It removes the typing, not the judgement.
- Not a full general ledger. It is receipts, expenses, invoices and exports.
- Not a mobile app. It is a web app that works properly on a phone browser.
- Not software you install and run yourself. Organisations needing their own database and provider keys get a private instance we deploy and operate for them.
- Not integrated with other accounting platforms today. CSV import and export work now; connectors are on the roadmap and not shipped.
That list is here because a page that only says what a product does is a page you cannot trust about what it does.
Questions about the company
Who makes SimpleLoonie?
A small independent team in Ontario, Canada. SimpleLoonie is not a division of a larger accounting platform and has no outside owner. Support email goes to the people who build it.
Is SimpleLoonie a Canadian company?
It is built and operated from Ontario, Canada, and it is subject to Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA). The infrastructure it runs on is a separate question and we answer it plainly: the cloud service runs on Google Cloud in the United States, with AI processing in the United States and the European Union.
Does SimpleLoonie file my taxes or do my bookkeeping?
No. It records what your receipts say and gives you an export. It does not file GST/HST returns, does not prepare financial statements and does not give tax advice. The guides on this site are general information about how Canadian tax administration works, not advice about your situation.
Is SimpleLoonie a replacement for an accountant?
No, and it is better to say so. What it replaces is the evening spent typing receipts into a spreadsheet before you hand things to your accountant. The judgement calls — what is deductible, how to structure things, what to claim — are still theirs.
How do I contact a person?
Email info@shinobimedia.ca. A person in Ontario reads it. There is no chatbot in front of it and no ticket system to get lost in.
Can we use SimpleLoonie without putting records into the shared service?
Yes, through a private instance. We deploy and operate a dedicated instance for your organisation against a PostgreSQL database and object storage you own, using your own AI provider key, in the region you specify. It is a service we provide rather than software you run, and it is quoted per engagement.