Year-end accounts outsourcing for a practice behind on its filings
When the year-ends are stacking up, an Accounts seat gives your practice one accounts preparer for 160, 80 or 40 hours a month. They prepare the accounts and CT600s in your software, our own UK practice reviews each set, and you file under your firm's name.
When each year-end has to be filed
A private company files its accounts with Companies House within nine months of its year end (gov.uk). Year-ends cluster around March and December, which puts the heaviest filing weeks at the end of September and the end of December.
First accounts after incorporation have a different deadline, 21 months from the date the company was set up. Check each company's own date on the Companies House register.
How a backlog is cleared
Sort by deadline
You send the list of outstanding sets. We put them in Companies House date order and tell you which ones can make their date and which cannot.
Send each job with its papers
Through the portal, one job per set, with the bank statements, prior-year accounts and trial balance in the checklist slots.
One preparer works through them
The same person every month, in your accounts production software, with one query list per job and the date each answer is needed by.
Our UK practice reviews each set
Accounts and tax work passes review by our own UK practice before it is delivered. The preparer and the reviewer are always different people.
You approve and file
Each set arrives with its notes sheet. A straightforward company from clean bookkeeping is usually back within five working days.
What a late set costs your client
Companies House charges a private company these penalties for late accounts, and doubles them if the accounts were also late the year before (gov.uk).
What it costs
Accounts seat
One accounts preparer for year-end accounts, corporation tax, self assessment and management accounts, reviewed by our own UK practice.
Prices exclude VAT. The fee is fixed for the seat's hours, so a set that needs a clean-up costs you the same. Billing is rolling monthly, and every seat after the first is 10% off. The full service is on the outsourced accounts production page, and our guide to handing over year-end accounts covers the handover pack.
Questions
How quickly can you start on a backlog?
A new practice has its first jobs back in week two, after a call, a one-page plan within two working days and a named login for the person on your seat. A practice already working with us can add an extra seat with five working days' notice.
Which year-ends do you take first?
The ones closest to their Companies House date, unless you tell us otherwise. Sets already late go first, because the penalty rises at one, three and six months.
What do we get back with each set?
Statutory accounts under FRS 102 Section 1A or FRS 105, the corporation tax computation and CT600, working papers, lead schedules and a review notes sheet, in your own software.
Who files the accounts?
You do, under your firm's name. Our own UK practice reviews the accounts and tax work before it reaches you, then you review, approve and file. We can submit through your software on your instruction.
What happens to the seat once the backlog is cleared?
You can keep it for the rest of the year, move it from 160 hours to 80 or 40, or end it. Each change takes one month's notice.
Other situations we help with
Outsourcing tax return preparation
Self assessment returns to prepare before 31 January.
Outsourced bookkeeping for accountants
Your bookkeeper has handed in their notice.
Outsourced bookkeeping rates in the UK
Published hourly and monthly rates beside a UK hire.
Outsourced accounting from South Africa
The working day, the qualifications and the paperwork.
Offshore staffing for accounting firms
One named person on your work when a UK hire will not come.
Send us the list of outstanding year-ends
We reply within one working day with which sets can make their date, who would prepare them and the monthly fee.