An accounting period, or reporting period, is often 12 months. There may be different accounting periods for various business tasks. For example, you may have one for income tax, another for sales tax, and still others for business reporting.
An accounting period, or reporting period, is often 12 months. There may be different accounting periods for various business tasks. For example, you may have one for income tax, another for sales tax, and still others for business reporting.
Self-employed sole traders and business partnerships are normally taxed on the profits for the 12 month accounting period ending during the tax year. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year.
Your 'accounting period' for Corporation Tax is the time covered by your Company Tax Return. It can't be longer than 12 months and is normally the same as the financial year covered by your company or association's annual accounts.
1. Accounting reference dates
1.1 A company’s financial yearA financial year is usually a 12 month period for which you prepare accounts. Every company must prepare accounts tha...
2. Accounting records
Every company must keep accounting records - whether they are trading, or not.Accounting records must include: entries showing all money received a...
3. Accounts for your members
The directors of every company must prepare accounts for each financial year. These are called individual accounts. A parent company must also prep...
4. Accounts for Companies House
Companies House cannot give technical advice on your accounts. We can only give general guidance, not technical advice on specific accounting or le...
5. Deadlines for filing accounts
Unless you are filing your company’s first accounts, the time normally allowed for delivering accounts to Companies House is: 9 months from the acc...
6. Penalties for failing to file accounts
Failure to deliver accounts on time is a criminal offence. In addition, the law imposes a civil penalty for late filing of accounts on the company....
7. How to file your accounts at Companies House
7.1 Filing your accounts onlineYou can use our online filing service to file: dormant company accounts for companies that have never traded micro-e...
8. Micro-entity accounts
There are 3 classifications of company size to consider when preparing your accounts - small, medium or large. For small companies there’s also sub...
9. Small companies
A small company can prepare and submit accounts according to special provisions in the Companies Act 2006 and the relevant regulations. This means...
10. Audit exemption for small companies and micro-entities
Certain companies do not need to have an audit - but only if they’re eligible and want to take advantage of this exemption.If a company qualifies a...