Short answer: companies with a 31 March year-end must file their accounts at Companies House by 31 December, exactly as Self Assessment work peaks. Six weeks is enough to clear a backlog if you triage by deadline in week one, chase records in week two, separate preparation from review for four weeks, and protect partner time for sign-off.
For many UK practices, late autumn is when two queues meet. The year-end accounts for March year-end companies fall due on 31 December, nine months after the year-end (GOV.UK: prepare annual accounts). A month later, on 31 January, Self Assessment closes. The same partners and seniors are needed for both.
What late filing actually costs
Companies House charges a private limited company a penalty that rises with every month the accounts are late, and doubles if the accounts were also late the year before (GOV.UK: penalties for late filing):
| Time after the deadline | Penalty (private limited company) |
|---|---|
| Up to 1 month | £150 |
| 1 to 3 months | £375 |
| 3 to 6 months | £750 |
| More than 6 months | £1,500 |
Two points matter for a practice. First, Companies House states that an appeal may not succeed if the delay was the accountant’s fault. Second, the Corporation Tax bill is usually due 9 months and one day after the period end, even though the CT600 itself has 12 months (GOV.UK: Company Tax Returns). A client who hears their tax number in January has already missed the payment date.
A six-week plan
The plan below starts in early November for a 31 December deadline. Move it forward or back to match your own peak.
Week 1: triage every open job by deadline and readiness
List each outstanding set of accounts with its filing date, whether the records are in, and how complex it is. Sort by deadline first, then by readiness. Anything due by 31 December with records already in goes to the front.
Week 2: chase missing records with a fixed cut-off
Send one clear request per client listing exactly what is missing, with a date. Jobs still waiting on records after the cut-off move down the list, and the client is told what that means for their filing date.
Weeks 2 to 5: separate preparation from review
Preparation to trial balance or draft accounts is production work; review and sign-off are judgement work. Keep seniors on review and move preparation to whoever has the hours: juniors, overtime, or outside help working in your own software.
Weeks 3 to 5: review in batches, not one at a time
Book fixed review blocks in partners’ diaries each week and feed drafts into them in order of deadline. Review queues stall when drafts arrive one by one at random times.
Week 6: approvals, filing and Corporation Tax figures
Send accounts for client approval with the Corporation Tax figure and its payment date, file at Companies House, and log anything that will slip so the client hears it from you first.
Telling a client early that their accounts will be late, and why, is uncomfortable. It is far less uncomfortable than a penalty notice they did not expect, which Companies House sends automatically.
Where the extra hours come from
Most backlogs are not a skills problem; they are an hours problem in a fixed window. A new hire will not be recruited and trained before 31 December. The realistic options are overtime, moving work between team members, or temporary production help that works inside your own software while your team keeps review and sign-off.
That last option is what EarthOne does. Qualified Indian Chartered Accountants prepare year-end accounts under FRS 102, FRS 102 Section 1A and FRS 105, with working papers and CT600 computations, to trial balance or draft stage for your review, at £16.50 an hour. For example, 60 hours of year-end work in a single month costs £990, paid once, with no contract beyond one month’s notice. See year-end accounts outsourcing or how this works in IRIS.
Short of year-end hours before 31 December?
Tell us how many sets of accounts you have open and your software. We reply within one business day with who would prepare them and what it would cost.
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