Every UK company must prepare a set of statutory accounts each year. The exact period which these will cover will depend on the company’s accounting year end date.
In most cases, companies will prepare accounts on an annual basis for a period of twelve months, for example, from January 1st to 31st of December or from 1st March to 28th February.
An individual company’s accounting year end will be determined by one of two factors; the date on which it was registered and any whether any requests to change the reference date have been approved by Companies House.
The Date of Incorporation
In all cases, the initial accounting year end date of a company will be on the first anniversary of the end of the month in which it was incorporated.
Review the following examples:
Example 1
Date of incorporation was the 14 April 2007
The first accounting year end date will be 30 April 2008 and the accounts will cover the period from the 14 April 2007 to 30 April 2008.
In the second year, they will be from 1 May 2008 to 30 April 2009 and so on.
Example 2
Date of registration was the 2 November 2007
The first accounts will be made up to 30 November 2008 covering the period 2 November 2007 to 30 November 2008.
Subsequent accounting years will be from 1 December to the 30th November each year.
Example 3
Company formation took place on the 5 September 2007
The initial statutory accounts will be to the 30 September 2008 and will be for the dates from 2 September 2007 to the 30 September 2008
Future year's accounting periods will cover 1 October to the 30 September.
The second factor which will determine a company’s financial year end date will be whether a change of accounting reference date has been requested.
Change of accounting reference date
