Most year-ends run late for the same reason: the timetable is built forwards from the year-end date rather than backwards from the filing deadline, so the slack sits at the front where it is comfortable rather than at the back where it is needed. This page is a working template rather than an explainer. It plans the statutory cycle backwards from the filing deadline, names the owner and the dependency at each stage, and flags the four milestones that slip most often. The applicable framework — FRS 102 or IFRS — is maintained by the Financial Reporting Council. For the technical content of the accounts themselves, see our guide to preparing statutory accounts; for the audit specifically, FC audit preparation.
The fixed points
Two dates are immovable and everything else is planned against them. UK private companies must file accounts at Companies House within nine months of the period end (public companies within six months), and the corporation tax return follows at twelve months, per HMRC’s company tax return guidance, with payment at nine months and one day. Large companies pay corporation tax by quarterly instalments instead, which brings tax provisioning into the year itself. Where a shareholder agreement, lender covenant or investor reporting obligation requires accounts earlier — frequently four to six months — that becomes your real deadline and the whole timetable compresses accordingly.
Work out which date genuinely binds you before you plan anything. A great many finance functions plan to the statutory deadline and then discover the covenant certificate is due two months earlier.
For a 31 December year-end, the statutory dates fall as follows:
| Obligation | Deadline after year-end | 31 December year-end |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts to Companies House (private company) | 9 months | 30 September |
| Accounts to Companies House (public company) | 6 months | 30 June |
| Corporation tax payment (not large) | 9 months and 1 day | 1 October |
| CT600 corporation tax return | 12 months | 31 December |
| Lender or investor accounts (typical) | 4–6 months | 30 April to 30 June |
Two refinements matter. A company’s first accounts run to a different clock — for a private company, 21 months from incorporation where the first period is longer than twelve months — so newly formed entities in a group should be checked individually. And Companies House is phasing in identity verification for directors, people with significant control and anyone filing on a company’s behalf, so confirm well before the filing week that whoever will submit the accounts is verified. The gov.uk guidance on annual accounts sets out the current position.
Late filing penalties
Missing the Companies House deadline triggers automatic civil penalties. For a private company they are £150 if the accounts are up to one month late, £375 for one to three months, £750 for three to six months and £1,500 for more than six months, and they double if the accounts are late two years running. Public company penalties run from £750 to £7,500. Full details are in the Companies House late filing penalties guidance. HMRC penalties and interest for late corporation tax returns and payments run separately.
The backwards timetable
The template below assumes a nine-month filing deadline and an audited entity. Adjust the compression for unaudited accounts or an earlier covenant date; the sequence does not change.
| Working back | Milestone | Owner | Depends on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deadline | Accounts filed at Companies House | FC / FA | Signed accounts, board approval |
| −2 weeks | Board approval and signature | FD / Board | Final audited draft, audit clearance |
| −4 weeks | Audit clearance and final adjustments | Auditor / FC | Resolved findings, final journals |
| −6–8 weeks | Audit fieldwork complete | Auditor | Full audit file provided, queries answered |
| −10 weeks | Audit fieldwork begins | Auditor | Trial balance final, file ready, staff available |
| −12 weeks | Audit file complete and reviewed | FC / FA | All reconciliations, judgements documented |
| −14 weeks | Technical judgements documented | FA | Revenue, provisions, impairment, deferred tax |
| −16 weeks | Hard close — trial balance final | FC | All accruals, cut-off, stock, intercompany |
| −18 weeks | Balance sheet fully reconciled | FM / FA | Monthly reconciliation discipline through the year |
| −20 weeks | Audit planning meeting held | FC / Auditor | Materiality, scope, timetable, PBC list agreed |
| −22 weeks | PBC list received and allocated | FC | Auditor engagement confirmed |
| −26 weeks | Kick-off: timetable issued and owners named | FC | — |
For a December year-end filing in September, that puts kick-off in late March — roughly three months after the period end, which surprises most people the first time they plan it properly.
Read the table as the latest safe plan against the statutory deadline, not the ideal one. It describes the post-year-end statutory cycle; it does not replace the work that has to happen before the year-end — appointing or re-confirming the auditor, booking the fieldwork slot, agreeing stock count attendance and cut-off procedures. Where a lender or investor wants accounts at four to six months, or where this is the company’s first audit, the same sequence runs considerably earlier, as the month-by-month plan below and our guide to preparing for your first audit set out.
A month-by-month plan around the year-end
Many finance functions prefer to run the cycle earlier than the backwards template requires, finishing the audit within three to five months of the year-end and leaving the remaining months as genuine contingency. For a 31 December year-end, that rhythm looks like this:
| When | Month (31 Dec year-end) | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 6–9 months before | April to June | Confirm whether an audit is needed against the size thresholds; appoint or re-confirm the auditor; sign the engagement letter |
| 3–6 months before | July to September | Book fieldwork dates; assess accounting changes (including FRS 102 transition); tidy reconciliations; draft papers on known judgements; identify capacity gaps |
| 1–3 months before | October to December | Planning meeting; agree materiality, scope and PBC list; issue stock count instructions; name owners outside finance |
| Year-end | 31 December | Stock count attended by the auditor where needed; cut-off procedures |
| 1–2 months after | January to February | Hard close; final trial balance; draft accounts; PBC pack completed |
| 2–4 months after | March to April | Fieldwork; query resolution; adjustments agreed |
| 3–5 months after | April to May | Board approval; letter of representation; audit report signed; management letter issued |
| By 9 months after | 30 September | Statutory filing deadline at Companies House (private company) |
| 9 months and 1 day after | 1 October | Corporation tax payment due (unless paying by instalments) |
| 12 months after | 31 December | CT600 due |
The two plans are compatible: the month-by-month rhythm is the target, and the backwards table tells you how late each milestone can slip before the statutory deadline is at risk. Run both, and review progress fortnightly against the earlier one. Our guide to managing the year-end audit relationship covers agreeing the timetable with the auditor.
The four milestones that slip
In practice, delay concentrates in four places rather than spreading evenly.
The balance sheet reconciliation at −18 weeks. By far the largest cause. A function that reconciles monthly reaches this point already complete; one that reconciles at year-end starts an excavation and everything downstream moves. This milestone is really a statement about the previous twelve months, not about the year-end — our guide to optimising the month-end close covers the discipline that prevents it.
The technical judgements at −14 weeks. Revenue recognition, provisions, impairment and deferred tax are frequently left until the auditor asks, at which point they are being formed under time pressure and argued rather than documented. Writing the memo before fieldwork changes the conversation entirely — see writing technical accounting memos and our note on deferred tax fundamentals.
Information from outside finance. Stock counts, work in progress, legal confirmations, contract data. Finance cannot control these and therefore must chase them early; the timetable should name the person outside finance who owns each, not just the finance-side recipient.
And auditor availability. Firms book fieldwork months ahead and December year-ends compete with every other December year-end. A slipped internal milestone can cost far more than the delay itself if it means losing the booked slot — which is the strongest practical argument for building slack at the front rather than the back.
Size, audit exemption and the FRS 102 changes
Two checks belong at kick-off, because they change the scope of everything that follows. The first is company size. For financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025 the thresholds increased, and a company falls into a category if it meets at least two of the three criteria. Whether an audit is required — and what exemptions apply — is set out in the gov.uk guidance on audit exemptions.
| Category | Turnover not more than | Balance sheet total not more than | Average employees not more than |
|---|---|---|---|
| Micro-entity | £1 million | £500,000 | 10 |
| Small | £15 million | £7.5 million | 50 |
| Medium | £54 million | £27 million | 250 |
| Large | Exceeds the medium thresholds on two or more criteria |
Bear in mind that small companies can still be audited because a lender, investor or group parent requires it, and that subsidiaries, public companies and certain regulated firms cannot take the small-company audit exemption at all. Our explainer on management accounts versus statutory accounts covers how the two reporting cycles interact.
The second check is the framework. The FRC’s periodic review amendments to FRS 102 apply to periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, introducing a five-step revenue recognition model and bringing most leases on to the lessee’s balance sheet. For a December year-end company, the first affected year-end is therefore 31 December 2026. Transition choices, the lease data needed and the effect on covenants and tax all need working through at the planning stage, not discovered at the hard close — our guide to revenue recognition under IFRS 15 covers the model the new FRS 102 section is based on.
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Using the template
Four things that make the difference between a timetable and a document.
Name a person against every row, including the rows outside finance. “Operations” is not an owner.
Circulate it beyond finance at kick-off. Most of the dependencies sit elsewhere in the business, and people meet deadlines they knew about.
Review it fortnightly against actual, not at the end. A milestone missed at −18 weeks is recoverable; the same slippage discovered at −8 is not.
And keep the slack at the front. The instinct is to plan generously at the end because that is where the pressure feels greatest — but the end is where the auditor and the board control the timetable rather than you. Contingency is only useful where you can still spend it.
The year-ends that run smoothly are decided months before the period end, not in the fortnight before fieldwork. What separates them is almost entirely the state of the balance sheet reconciliation when the audit file is being built. If you take one thing from this template, make it the row at minus eighteen weeks: everything downstream depends on it, and unlike the auditor’s availability or the stock count, it is entirely within your control.
Where the timetable meets capacity
A timetable does not create capacity, and the common failure is a well-planned year-end running alongside a monthly close that has not stopped. Three honest options where the two collide.
Reassign the monthly cycle temporarily so the person preparing the audit file is not also producing the pack.
Bring in interim support for the peak. Year-end is a bounded, dated requirement — the clearest case for interim there is — and a financial accountant on assignment for eight weeks costs materially less than a late filing or a rushed audit. Interim financial accountants typically cost around £275–£400 a day in London for year-end cover, as our interim financial accountant day rates guide sets out. For groups, the same applies with more force: consolidation capacity is scarcest exactly when everyone needs it, as our guide to interim Group FC reporting-season cover sets out.
Or accept the compression consciously and tell the board the pack will be late in the relevant month, rather than discovering it. That is a legitimate choice; discovering it is not.
Where the capacity gap is permanent rather than seasonal — the same scramble every year — the answer is usually a hire rather than an interim. Our guides to when to hire a financial accountant and hiring a financial accountant for a first audit cover that decision.
Frequently asked questions
How long before the deadline should year-end planning start?
Against a nine-month private company deadline, the latest safe kick-off is about 26 weeks before filing — late March for a December year-end. Auditor appointment, fieldwork booking and stock count arrangements should be settled before the year-end itself.
When are statutory accounts and corporation tax due?
Accounts are due at Companies House nine months after the year-end for a private company and six months for a public company. Corporation tax is usually payable nine months and one day after the period end, and the CT600 is due twelve months after it.
Do the FRS 102 changes affect this year-end?
They apply to periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, so a December year-end company first reports under them at 31 December 2026. Revenue and lease transition work should be in the planning stage of the timetable.
What happens if accounts are filed late?
Companies House charges automatic penalties from £150 to £1,500 for a private company depending on how late the accounts are, doubled if they are late two years in a row.
What does interim year-end cover cost?
An interim financial accountant for year-end typically costs around £275–£400 a day in London. An interim Financial Controller costs more, and the right choice depends on whether the gap is preparation capacity or ownership of the audit.
Adrian Lawrence FCA — Founder, Accountancy Capital
Fellow of the ICAEW | Chartered Accountant holding an ICAEW practising certificate | Part of FD Capital Group
Adrian is a former listed-company Finance Director who has run the statutory cycle from the client side, and holds a BSc from Queen Mary College, University of London. Accountancy Capital, one of the five specialist firms of FD Capital Group, places the financial accountants and Financial Controllers who own the year-end. His advice: plan backwards from the deadline, name a person against every line, and put the slack at the front where you can still spend it.
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