It is highly recommended that you employ a qualified accountant to deal with all aspects for the business, as this area is tightly regulated and it is essential that the accounts are managed competently.

Changing you Accountancy date

You may decide to change your agreed accounting date for the following reasons.
-    To simplify your tax calculations by bringing your financial reporting in line with the tax year.
-    To bring your tax year in line with others businesses within your group.
-    To bring in line with seasonal or commercial factors within your environment.
-    To allow more time for account preparation.

Sole traders – To change your accounting date as a sole trader you need to notify your tax inspector in your self assessment return. You will be required to provide a reason for your decision.
By changing your accounting date you could be liable to being taxed twice for the same period, due to an overlap of basis periods. If this occurs you will need to provide a record to your taxed office and the sum will be reclaimed at a later date.

Partnerships – a partnership would normally complete a tax return for the accounting period which ends in that tax year. However you must complete additional tax return pages if you change the accounting period so that more than one period ends in the tax year.

If a certain change in the accounting date means that no tax return is due in the given tax year, then the partnership is required to estimate its taxable profits for the year. If this is underestimated then you could be liable to pay interest.

Relaxations

SME’s and limited partnerships can benefit from relaxations in the requirement to supply full audited accounts annually to Companies House. Often you will be able to produce shortened versions of your accounts depending on your situation.

• Funding
• Loans
• Banking
• Tax