Ottawa, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - August 27, 2026) - Zenbooks, a fully remote, Ottawa-based accounting firm serving more than 300 Canadian small and mid-sized businesses, has been named Large Firm of the Year at the Xero Partner Awards Canada 2026. The award was announced at the awards ceremony at Xerocon in Denver in August 2026 and recognizes achievements over the period from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026. Official results are published by Xero.
Zenbooks is the publisher of the Zenbooks Financial Clarity Index, Canada's first national benchmark of small business financial clarity. The 2026 edition, based on a survey of 565 Canadian small and mid-sized business owners, produced a national score of 56.7 out of 100, with more than half of Canadian small businesses scoring below 60. The full methodology is published and was independently reviewed by Peter MacKenzie, PhD, an economist and Senior Policy Analyst and Head of Financial Services Research at the C.D. Howe Institute, in his individual capacity. The review does not constitute an endorsement by the C.D. Howe Institute.
The two are connected. The Large Firm of the Year category assesses client care, retention, and innovation in service delivery. The index measures the specific gap those services exist to close: whether a business owner knows what their numbers mean in time to act on them.
"Most small business owners are not short of data. They are short of interpretation," said Eric Saumure, CPA, CA, Principal at Zenbooks. "We built the index because we kept seeing the same thing across three hundred files, and we wanted to know whether it was a pattern or just our client base. It was a pattern."
Zenbooks works with incorporated Canadian businesses, typically between $1 million and $10 million in revenue, that want monthly financial interpretation rather than year-end tax filing alone. The firm charges fixed monthly fees, performs all work in Canada with no offshoring, and offers a full refund to any client who is not satisfied within their first 30 days. Client retention over the 12 months ending July 31, 2026 was 93 percent.
Zenbooks was also named Community Champion at the same awards and was a finalist for Advisory Innovator of the Year.
Nominations for the Xero Partner Awards Canada are scored by an internal Xero panel, with final judging conducted by external industry specialists. The Large Firm of the Year category is open to Canada-based Xero partners with more than 16 employees. Any Canadian business owner can measure themselves against the national benchmark at no cost and with no email required at http://zenbooks.ca/financial-clarity-assessment.
About Zenbooks
Zenbooks is a fully remote, Ottawa-based accounting and advisory firm serving more than 300 incorporated Canadian small and mid-sized businesses, typically between $1 million and $10 million in revenue. A Xero Gold Partner founded in 2015 as one of Canada's first fully cloud-native firms, Zenbooks was named Large Firm of the Year and Community Champion at the Xero Partner Awards Canada 2026. It publishes the Zenbooks Financial Clarity Index, Canada's national benchmark of small business financial clarity. Learn more at zenbooks.ca.
Media contact
Eric Saumure, CPA, CA
Principal, Zenbooks
eric@zenbooks.ca | 613.703.3008
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/311799
Source: Zenbooks
