Statutory accounts: what they are, who prepares them, and when they are due

The envelope from Companies House

Take a company like Wharfedale Joinery Ltd, five years old, fourteen staff, a year end of 31 March. In the summer a reminder arrives from Companies House: accounts for the year to 31 March 2026 are due by 31 December. The director, who keeps the books in good order and reads the management accounts every month, asks the obvious question: are the accounts Companies House wants the same thing as the ones on her desk?

They are not, and the difference matters. This guide explains what statutory accounts are, what goes in them, who prepares them, the deadlines and penalties, how they differ from management accounts, and how the year-end work behind them is done.

What are statutory accounts?

Statutory accounts are the annual accounts that every UK limited company must prepare for each financial year under the Companies Act 2006. You will also hear them called annual accounts, year-end accounts, financial statements or final accounts; "final statutory accounts" usually just means the approved, signed version as opposed to a draft. "Statutory" means required by statute, and that is the point: unlike most of the reports a business produces, these are not optional, their format is set by law and accounting standards, and a version of them goes on the public register.

GOV.UK lists what they must include (Annual accounts):

• a balance sheet, showing what the company owns and owes and its shareholders' funds on the last day of the year;
• a profit and loss account, showing its sales, running costs and the profit or loss for the year;
• notes to the accounts, setting out the accounting policies and the detail behind the main figures;
• a directors' report, which a company using the micro-entity provisions does not need;
• an auditor's report, but only if the company is not exempt from audit.

Copies always go to three places: the company's members (its shareholders), Companies House, and HMRC as part of the Company Tax Return. They are not always the same copy, which is where the size of the company comes in.

Statutory accounts are a limited company requirement. A sole trader or an ordinary partnership prepares accounts for its tax return but files nothing at Companies House; limited liability partnerships have their own regime. This guide is about private limited companies in the UK, Northern Ireland included. Irish companies follow a different rulebook, covered on our Ireland page.

Statutory accounts vs management accounts

This is the question the Wharfedale director was really asking, and it comes up in every first year of trading. Management accounts and statutory accounts are built from the same ledger, but they are made for different readers and different jobs.

A business needs both, for different reasons. Management accounts tell the directors how the year is going while there is still time to act; statutory accounts are the formal record once it is over. Our guide to what management accounts are works through a monthly pack in detail.

Micro-entity, small or larger: which accounts you prepare

How much a company has to prepare and file depends on its size. The current thresholds are set out by GOV.UK (Micro-entities, small and dormant companies) and apply to financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025 (SI 2024/1303, regulation 3). A company qualifies if it meets at least two of the three tests.

The balance sheet test is total assets before liabilities. Public companies, some regulated companies and members of ineligible groups cannot use the small regimes even if they are under the limits.

What each size can do:

• Micro-entities can prepare simpler accounts that meet the statutory minimum, file only a balance sheet with less information at Companies House, and do not need a directors' report. The balance sheet carries a statement that the accounts have been prepared in accordance with the micro-entity provisions. Our micro-entity accounts guide has a full sample.
• Small companies can use the audit exemption, choose not to file the profit and loss account and directors' report at Companies House (often called "filleted" accounts), or, if every member agrees, file abridged accounts with a simpler balance sheet.
• Larger companies file the full set, including the profit and loss account and directors' report, and usually need an audit.

What goes in a small company's statutory accounts: a worked example

Back to Wharfedale Joinery. Its turnover is £1.42 million and it employs 14 people, so it fails two of the micro-entity tests and cannot use FRS 105, but it is comfortably small. Its accounts are prepared under FRS 102 section 1A, and it takes the audit exemption. Here is what the full pack contains, and where each part goes.

The balance sheet, summarised (illustrative figures):

Its balance sheet total for the size test is the gross assets, 48,200 + 86,450 = £134,650, which passes the micro-entity balance sheet test on its own; the company is still not a micro-entity because it fails the turnover and employee tests.

Under the balance sheet sit the statements a small, audit-exempt company has to make, in substance:

• that the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 for the year;
• that the members have not required the company to obtain an audit;
• that the directors acknowledge their responsibilities for keeping accounting records and preparing accounts;
• that the accounts have been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

Then the date the board approved the accounts, and a director's signature and printed name.

What Wharfedale actually files at Companies House, if it chooses the filleted route, is the company information, the balance sheet with those statements and the notes. The profit and loss account and directors' report stay off the public record, but both go to the shareholders and, in full, to HMRC.

Who prepares statutory accounts?

Legally, the directors. GOV.UK's guidance for directors puts it plainly: "The directors of every company must prepare accounts for each financial year" (Life of a company: accounts). The board must approve the accounts before they go to members, and a director signs the balance sheet on the board's behalf.

In practice, most small companies have an accountant prepare their statutory accounts. The responsibility does not move with the work: if the accounts are wrong or late, it is the directors who answer for it. That is why a good accountant sends queries before finalising, and why the directors should read the accounts before signing, not just the tax figure.

How statutory accounts are prepared, step by step

Preparing statutory accounts is mostly the work that happens before anything is laid out in the statutory format. For a small company the preparation of statutory accounts usually runs like this:

1. Close the books for the year. Every sale, purchase and bank line recorded, bank accounts reconciled to the statements, VAT returns agreed to the ledger.
2. Make the year-end adjustments. Accruals for costs incurred but not billed, prepayments for costs paid in advance, depreciation, stock at the year end, bad debts and provisions, and any loans or hire purchase split between interest and capital.
3. Build the working papers. An extended trial balance showing the ledger, the adjustments and the final figures, with a schedule behind each balance: fixed asset register, capital allowances, debtors, creditors, accruals and prepayments, loans, the director's loan account, VAT and payroll.
4. Work out the corporation tax. The tax computation turns the accounting profit into taxable profit, adding back disallowable costs and depreciation and claiming capital allowances; the charge then goes back into the accounts.
5. Lay out the statutory accounts. The final trial balance is mapped into the statutory format for the company's size and framework, usually in accounts production software, with the notes and directors' report.
6. Review, approve and sign. The directors review the draft, the board approves it and a director signs the balance sheet.
7. File and send. The accounts go to Companies House, to HMRC with the Company Tax Return and computation, and to the shareholders.

Steps 1 to 4 are where the time goes and where the mistakes hide. A template only arranges figures that are already right; it does not make them right. Our PrepIQ guide walks through the year-end method in more detail, including a worked corporation tax computation.

When statutory accounts are due

Sources: GOV.UK, Life of a company and Company Tax Returns. Companies with larger profits pay corporation tax in instalments instead.

For Wharfedale, with a 31 March 2026 year end, that means accounts at Companies House by 31 December 2026, corporation tax paid by 1 January 2027 and the tax return filed by 31 March 2027. In practice the tax payment drives the timetable: the accounts and the computation need to be close to final by the end of December to know what to pay.

A company's first period of account can be longer than 12 months, but a corporation tax accounting period cannot, so a long first period means two tax returns from one set of accounts.

Late filing penalties

Companies House penalties for a private limited company are automatic (Penalties for late filing):

The penalty is doubled if the accounts are late two years in a row. HMRC charges separately for a late Company Tax Return: £200 if it is a day late, another £200 at three months, then an estimated tax bill plus 10% of the unpaid tax at six months and another 10% at twelve. If the return is late three times in a row, the £200 penalties become £1,000 each (GOV.UK).

Do statutory accounts need an audit?

Most small private companies do not need one. For financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, a company can be exempt if it meets at least two of: turnover of no more than £15 million, assets of no more than £7.5 million, and 50 or fewer employees on average (Audit exemptions).

An audit is still needed if the articles of association require one, if shareholders holding at least 10% of the shares ask for one in writing at least a month before the year end, or if the company is, among others, a public company, a subsidiary without an exemption, or a regulated business such as a bank or insurer. An audit-exempt company's accounts are still statutory accounts: unaudited does not mean unchecked, and the directors' statement on the balance sheet confirms they accept responsibility for them.

What changes from April 2028

On 9 June 2026 the government confirmed changes to accounts filing at Companies House from April 2028 (GOV.UK):

• Software-only filing. All companies will file accounts in iXBRL through commercial software; the web and paper accounts filing services will close. The Companies House filing page gives the date as 1 April 2028.
• Profit and loss accounts for small and micro companies. They will have to file a profit and loss account as other companies do, with an option not to have it published.
• No more abridged accounts. The option to file abridged accounts is being removed.
• A strengthened audit exemption statement. Every company claiming an audit exemption will make a strengthened eligibility statement.
• Everything filed together. The component parts of the filed accounts and reports will all have to be filed together.
• Fewer shortenings. The number of times a company can shorten its accounting reference period will be reduced.

For small companies that file filleted accounts today, the practical change is that the profit and loss account goes to Companies House too, so it needs the same care as the balance sheet. Check Companies House's guidance before you rely on the detail, because the supporting rules are still being published.

Where the working papers come from

Statutory accounts software, usually called accounts production software, takes a final trial balance and produces the accounts in the right statutory format for the company's size, with the notes and the iXBRL tagging needed to file. IRIS, TaxCalc, CCH and BTCSoftware are common in UK practices. What none of them does is the work in steps 1 to 4 above: they lay out figures, they do not prepare them.

That middle stage, the year-end working papers, is where PrepIQ fits. A practice hands it the client's records in whatever form they arrive, and RiQ, the AI inside ReconcileIQ, prepares the working papers set for review: the extended trial balance, fixed asset register and capital allowances, accruals and prepayments, loan and hire purchase schedules, VAT, the corporation tax computation, and a notes and queries register. Every posted figure is linked back to its working, and anything RiQ is unsure of is raised as a query rather than guessed. The accountant reviews and signs off, then produces the statutory accounts in their accounts production software from the reviewed trial balance.

To be clear about the limits: PrepIQ prepares the working papers, not the statutory accounts themselves, and it does not file anything at Companies House or HMRC. It is live on the ReconcileIQ practice plans (Practice Essential and above), works for UK and Irish practices, and each year-end job draws 5,000 credits on the default engine or 10,000 on maximum. For clients whose books are kept in IQ Books, the job starts from Year-end close in IQ Books, and the adjusting journals come back to the ledger for review before anything posts.

• What PrepIQ prepares, in detail
• PrepIQ questions on year-end and statutory accounts
• A real PrepIQ job, timed

Before the directors sign

A short checklist for the meeting where the final statutory accounts are approved:

• Does the bank balance on the balance sheet agree to the bank statements at the year end?
• Do debtors and creditors agree to the aged reports, and is the VAT liability the figure on the return?
• Is the director's loan account right, and is any overdrawn balance dealt with for tax?
• Has the company used the right size regime, and are the statements under the balance sheet the right ones?
• Does the corporation tax charge agree to the computation that will go with the return?
• Are the comparative figures last year's final numbers?
• Is the approval date recorded, and is the right director signing?

Keep the working papers and the records behind them: HMRC expects company records to be kept for 6 years from the end of the last financial year they relate to, and longer in some cases (GOV.UK).