Knowing the financial year end of your Limited Company is important because it not only affects the period of time you need to prepare your accounts for, but it also determines when you need to file your accounts and tax returns.
Financial year ends differ from Company to Company, there is no set date, but they always run to the end of a month. If you have not changed your Limited Company year end since your company was formed, then your year end will automatically be the end of the month your formation took place. So if you formed your Company on 15th August 2020, your year end will be 31 August each year. Your first set of accounts being slightly more than 12 months running from 15th August 2020 to 31 August 2021. Subsequent financial years will then be 12 months long, from 1 September to 31 August each year.
The financial year end of your Company does not affect filing deadlines and payment due dates for your personal tax return.
How to Check the Year End of Your Limited Company
There are a number of ways you can check your year end. The simplest way to go over to the Companies House website and search the publicly available information on their register of companies.
Check Publicly Available Information
You can search for your company by using your full name, if you are a Director, company registration number or Limited Company name.
Once you find the information on your Company, you’ll see when your next accounts should be made up to. This is your financial year end date – in the example above, you can see that is 31 December 2021. You’ll also see when your confirmation statement is due for filing as well – which is helpful because failing to file this can result in your Limited Company being struck off.
Sign in to the Companies House WebFiling Service
If you have set up your Companies House Webfiling Service, you’ll find information about your Limited Company inside this account. You’ll find out when your next accounts need to be made up to once you have logged in.
Check a Previous Set of Accounts
If you have filed accounts previously, you can also check the date that you used when these were filed unless you changed your accounting date.
Key Takeaways
- Knowing your financial year-end is important because it tells you which period you need to prepare annual accounts for and when your corporation tax is due;
- The financial year-end can differ from company to company, there is no set date;
- The three ways to check your financial year-end are to:
- Check public information on the Companies House register
- Look inside your online Companies House Webfiling account
- Check when your previous accounts were prepared up to (unless you changed your accounting date)
