Year End Accounts

If you know about accounting, reporting and are up to date with companies house and tax laws, you can prepare your accounts and send them to companies house and HMRC.  We always advise a client to get advice from a professional tax advisor instead of making any mistake.

If your business is a ‘small company’ or a ‘micro-entity, you can send more simplified accounts to Companies House and not need to be audited. Your company is considered ‘small’ if it has at least two of the following: sales of £10.2 million or less, £5.1 million or less on its balance sheet, and 50 workers or less. It counts as a ‘micro-entity if it has at least two of the following: a sales of £632,000 or less, £316,000 or less on its balance sheet, and ten staff or fewer. Small companies and micro-entities can use an exception to this rule so that their accounts do not need to be audited and can pick whether or not to send a copy of the director’s report and profit and loss account. Micro-entities can prepare more basic statements that satisfy statutory minimum obligations and send only their balance sheet to Companies House.

A small company or micro entity must send its year end accounts to companies house within nine months after the year end date. Corporation tax return for the same year end of the company should be submitted online to HMRC within 12 months after the year end.

No, you can. You should only include expenses that are related to your business. If you are a contractor, you can assign a salary to your spouse and have that as expenses in your accounts.

If you are filling accounts yourself through the government website, you do not need to make any payment. You can use HMRC online service to file your accounts to companies house as well. But beware, even if your company is dormant, you may not have accounted for expenses and would not be allowed to claim loss of the previous year in future if not claimed in that years’ accounts.

If you’re late in filing your year end accounts to companies house, an automatic penalty notice will be issued. The late filing penalties are:
Up to 1 month – £150, 1–3 months – £375, 3-6 months – £750 and over six months – £1,500. If you are late over two years in a row – penalties will be doubled.

HMRC has published guidance for how to prepare and file year-end accounts, but this guide will help you only to prepare the accounts and submit them. It will not give you technical information about claiming certain expenses and reliefs.

You can’t extend the year-end if you have already passed the deadline for filling. But if you think you will be late, you can make an application to companies house with a reasonable excuse or shorten the account reference date by one day to get extra time for three months.