The annual accounts filing process: a step-by-step guide for limited companies
Filing annual accounts is not one job but two: a set of accounts to Companies House for the public register, and a fuller set to HMRC with your corporation tax return. Most of the confusion, and most of the penalties, come from treating them as the same thing. Here is the whole process in order, from the day your year ends to the day both filings are accepted.
Who gets what
Companies House receives your statutory accounts and puts them on the public register. Small and micro companies can currently file a reduced version that leaves out the profit and loss account.
HMRC receives the full accounts, never the reduced version, along with a corporation tax computation and the CT600 return. All of it must be tagged in iXBRL, which in practice means it comes out of accounts production software rather than a spreadsheet.
Your shareholders are entitled to the full accounts too. One set of books, three audiences.
Step 1: Confirm your dates
Everything runs from your accounting reference date, which is your year-end. Companies House sets it at incorporation as the last day of the month in which the company was formed, and you can check it on the public register in seconds. Accounts are due nine months after that date. First accounts are different: they are due 21 months after incorporation, and because they usually cover more than twelve months they normally need two corporation tax returns, since a CT600 cannot cover more than a year.
Step 2: Close the books
Before anyone can prepare accounts, the bookkeeping has to be finished as at the year-end date. That means every bank and card account reconciled, sales invoices raised and unpaid ones reviewed for bad debts, supplier bills entered, stock counted and valued, and payroll and VAT control accounts agreed to what HMRC holds.
The director's loan account deserves its own check. Personal spending through the company and drawings taken ahead of dividends end up here, and an overdrawn balance at the year-end has tax consequences of its own. We cover those in our guide to the director's loan account.
Step 3: Make the year-end adjustments
This is the part that turns a bookkeeping file into accounts. Depreciation is charged on equipment and vehicles. Costs paid in advance are carried forward as prepayments, and costs incurred but not yet billed are brought in as accruals. Work invoiced ahead of delivery is deferred. Dividends are checked against available reserves and the paperwork that should support them. Then the corporation tax charge is calculated and provided for, so the balance sheet shows what the company actually owes.
Step 4: Choose the right accounts regime
The size of the company decides what the accounts must contain. A company qualifies for a regime if it meets two of the three tests, generally for two years running.
Micro-entity (FRS 105): turnover up to £1 million, balance sheet total up to £500,000, up to 10 employees. The simplest format, with very few notes.
Small (FRS 102 Section 1A): turnover up to £15 million, balance sheet total up to £7.5 million, up to 50 employees. Fuller notes, still no audit for most.
Above that, full FRS 102 accounts apply and an audit is usually required. Micro-entity accounts are cheaper to produce but disclose very little, which is not always a benefit. Lenders, landlords and larger customers read filed accounts, and a bare micro-entity balance sheet can work against a company that is applying for credit.
Step 5: Approve and sign
The board approves the accounts and a director signs the balance sheet, with the director's name printed. For a company claiming audit exemption, the balance sheet must carry the statutory statements confirming that the exemption applies and that the directors acknowledge their responsibility for the accounts. Missing or incorrect wording here is one of the most common reasons Companies House rejects a filing, and a rejected filing does not stop the clock.
Step 6: File with Companies House
File online, either through accounts software or the Companies House web service, using the company's authentication code. Anyone filing must now have verified their identity with Companies House; if you have not done that yet, our guide to Companies House ID verification explains how. Online filings are normally accepted within a day or two. Paper filings take far longer and a rejection discovered late can tip an on-time filing into a late one.
Step 7: File with HMRC and pay the tax
HMRC needs three things together: the full accounts, the corporation tax computation and the CT600, all in iXBRL. The return is due twelve months after the end of the accounting period, but the tax itself is due nine months and one day after it, so the payment deadline arrives first. HMRC's free joint filing service closed on 31 March 2026, so a company that used to file its own return that way now needs commercial software or an agent.
What happens if you file late
Companies House penalties are automatic and there is no discretion for a filing that is a day late.
- Up to one month late: £150
- One to three months: £375
- Three to six months: £750
- More than six months: £1,500
Those figures double if accounts were also late the previous year. Persistent failure can lead to the company being struck off and to action against the directors personally. HMRC runs its own separate penalties for a late CT600, starting at £100, plus interest on tax paid late. Our guide to year-end deadlines sets out the full calendar.
The mistakes we see most often
Filing dormant accounts for a company that has actually traded, even slightly. Putting one set of figures on the public register and a different set in the tax return. Assuming an extension will be granted; Companies House only agrees one for a genuinely unforeseen event, and only if you apply before the deadline. Forgetting that the confirmation statement is a separate annual filing with its own date. And shortening the accounting period at the last minute to buy time, which works once and creates a mess if it becomes a habit.
What is changing from April 2028
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act reforms to accounts filing were pushed back a year and are now confirmed for April 2028. From then:
- Every company must file accounts using commercial software. The web filing and paper routes go.
- Abridged accounts are abolished.
- Small and micro companies must file a profit and loss account with Companies House. They can opt out of having it published on the public register, but Companies House, HMRC and law enforcement will still see it.
- Companies claiming audit exemption must give a strengthened eligibility statement.
If you currently file your own accounts through the Companies House website, the practical point is that the route you use now will not exist in 2028. It is worth moving to software, or to an accountant, in a quiet year rather than in the month the rules change.
Making it routine
Year-end is only a scramble when the books are behind. With the bookkeeping kept current in Xero, accounts can be drafted within weeks of the year-end, the corporation tax figure is known months before it is payable, and the time is spent deciding what to do about the number rather than finding it. That is how we run year-ends for limited companies across Garforth, Leeds and West Yorkshire: accounts prepared early, both filings made well inside the deadlines, and no penalty letters. If your last set of accounts went in close to the wire, the time to fix that is now, while the next deadline is still a long way off.
This is general information, not advice for your circumstances. If you'd like it applied to your situation, get in touch — the first chat is free.
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