Burnaby Contractors: Keep IMBL Coverage Beside the Job Cost Record

Check eligibility and the actual destination

Burnaby's IMBL supplements a valid licence for a permanent Burnaby location. It covers eligible construction/trades and home-visit health-service categories in Burnaby, Delta, New Westminster, Richmond, Surrey and Vancouver. It is not a licence for every business type or every municipality.

Confirm eligibility with Licensing and review the requirements for the actual work before quoting a new destination. The current licence and any required professional or project documents should be available to the responsible person. A municipality appearing in the scheme does not eliminate site-specific permit decisions.

Give every job a location and approval reference

Use the street and unit address, customer name, scope and internal job code consistently. Keep approved work changes, supplier deliveries and staff time with that reference. If the same customer has two premises, its name alone will not distinguish where costs belong.

Travel and shared purchases need a repeatable basis. Directly identified costs should go to the correct job; a shared material delivery can be split using supported quantities or another agreed method. Avoid changing the allocation solely to make one project's margin look better.

Illustrative example: two commercial maintenance jobs

A Burnaby contractor completes one Burnaby job and one New Westminster job. A shared $1,800 material purchase is supported as 60% for the first job and 40% for the second: $1,080 and $720. Approved direct labour is $2,400 and $1,700, with travel costs of $90 and $60.

Direct costs are $3,570 and $2,480. Against approved revenue of $5,300 and $4,200 before taxes, contribution is $1,730 and $1,720 before overhead. The nearly equal contribution comes from different revenue and cost patterns; a combined $3,450 total would hide that distinction.

Review renewals separately from profitable work

Keep a register of the base licence, IMBL, covered activity, renewal information and any job-specific documentation. Assign someone to check changes when the business adds a service category, hires a subcontractor or enters another municipality. A successful previous job does not settle a future eligibility question.

Use the cost comparison to improve pricing and scheduling while retaining the evidence behind the administrative checks. Bookkeeping can organize these records and follow supplier credits. It does not authorize a trade, confirm legal permit compliance or determine whether a particular business qualifies for the scheme.

Put this into practice

• Commercial contractor bookkeeping →
• Project costs and commitments →
• Job invoices and collections →