What Information Does My Accountant Need To Prepare Annual Accounts For My Limited Company?
As a limited company, you must file what’s called annual accounts with Companies House. Your accountant will need a list of specific details to complete this process, and if you’re not working with your accountant throughout the year, or if you don’t have a professional bookkeeper to regularly do bookkeeping and maintain your books, preparing your annual accounts can become a much bigger and much more time-consuming job. This is because all of a sudden, 12 months (or more) worth of documents has to be analysed and prepared in a short period of time, which isn’t ideal.
Your books are important and should be a top priority. They form a basis for the annual accounts preparation. At Joanna Bookkeeping we provide assistance with the preparation and submission of your annual accounts to Companies House, but we can also help with your bookkeeping. Just book an initial meeting with our Oxford accountant to find out more.
It’s very important to point out that it’s the directors’ legal responsibility to submit correct annual accounts to Companies House, and this legal responsibility cannot be passed onto an accountant or any third parties . This is the law in the UK. Does it mean that you will actually have the prepare the annual accounts yourself? No. If you hired an accountant for this, they will prepare the annual accounts for you. However, they will do this based on the information and documents received from you, so make sure you give them all that’s needed and that this information is correct to the best of your knowledge.
What information and documents do you need to provide to your accountant?
The list below isn’t exhaustive, but it also doesn’t mean that each limited company will get asked for every single piece of information on the list. The information and documents you may need to provide to your accountant are:
- All bank statements for all business bank accounts (including any savings accounts) *These must be provided for the whole period and show the closing balance for each account at the year-end
- Credit card statements
- Any loan statements (if the business has any loans)
- All details regarding any leases and other financial agreements
- All sales invoices and any other documents showing your sales
- All supplier invoices
- Any receipts where your accountant needs further clarification on transactions
- All payroll records (if applicable)
- VAT returns and VAT workings (if you’re VAT registered and your accountant hasn’t prepared your VAT returns)
- A list of fixed assets
- Information regarding any liabilities owed by the business at the year-end. *This can include VAT to HMRC, PAYE, trade creditors (your suppliers you owe money to)
- A list of debtors (money owed to you at the year-end)
- Any information regarding debts that you won’t be able to recover from your clients
- A list of stock at the year-end (if applicable)
- Details regarding any work in progress
- Information regarding any income you haven’t received yet but should be accounted for in the accounts
- Time frames for various transactions to decide whether something belongs in the year the accounts are prepared for or not, so if your accountant asks you for what period is this service, this isn’t simply because they’re bored 😁
- Any other information that your accountant needs that may be relevant
If you’ve been using accounting software throughout the year, like for example Xero, your accountant may need less information as a lot of information will already have been gathered via the accounting software. They will still, however, need some clarification before they can finalise the annual accounts.
Your accountant may also ask you for some samples of your records and not necessarily full records. For example, they may ask you for one or two invoices you receive from your supplier for renting the office if you pay the same amount each time, instead of requesting every single invoice from throughout the year.
Hopefully, this article has helped you to understand more clearly the information that’s needed by your accountant in order to prepare annual accounts for your limited company.
If you have any questions about working with Joanna Bookkeeping, why not book a call with our Oxford-based accountant?
Your Accountant in Oxford
Oxford Office
Joanna Bookkeeping
The Wheelhouse Angel Court
First Floor, Angel Court
81 St Clements St
Oxford
OX4 1AW
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joanna@joannabookkeeping.co.uk
01865 591952
