What your accountant needs for year end: a checklist

Your accountant’s follow-up email often starts where the records stop: a payment without an invoice, a transfer with no explanation, or personal spending mixed into the company account. Sending another folder of receipts may still leave those questions unanswered.

The useful answer to “what does my accountant need for year end” is a complete set of records with the gaps explained. Your accountant needs to connect the bank activity to the documents and understand what the company owned and owed at the year end.

Use the list below to assemble that handover. It covers the documents to gather, the notes that prevent avoidable chasing and a package structure your accountant can work through without searching separate email threads.

The deadlines your accountant is working back from

Accounts, tax payment and the tax return have different deadlines. These are the standard deadlines shown in the government’s accounts and tax returns guidance:

For the hypothetical company used here, the financial year and Corporation Tax accounting period end on 30 June 2026. Applying those standard deadlines gives the following timetable; this is not a first-accounts example.

Agree a handover date with your accountant that leaves room to review the records and resolve queries. The filing deadline is not a useful target for sending an unexplained bundle.

For context, the main Corporation Tax rate is 25% for profits above £250,000; the small profits rate is 19% for profits of £50,000 or less. Marginal relief may apply between those thresholds. These are the headline rates and thresholds, not a calculation of your company’s bill. Leave the tax calculation to your accountant rather than estimating it from the bank balance.

What your accountant needs for year end: the list

The underlying record-keeping requirement covers money received and spent, assets, debts owed by or to the company, stock at the year end and the stocktakings used to establish it. The company and accounting records guidance sets out that scope.

Treat the following as a practical year end accounts checklist for a limited company. Mark anything that does not apply, so your accountant can distinguish an empty category from an overlooked one.

Bank, card and payment-provider statements for every account

Gather statements for the whole year from every company bank account, business card and payment provider. Include accounts you stopped using during the year. A quiet account can otherwise disappear from the handover.

Provide readable statements alongside transaction exports where available. Label each account clearly and check that the files cover the intended period without gaps. If the bookkeeping balance and statement balance differ, flag the difference for review instead of quietly changing a figure to make them agree.

Sales records and invoices, including gross marketplace statements

Include sales invoices, credit notes and the sales ledger. For marketplace sales, provide statements showing gross sales alongside refunds, fees and payouts. A payout alone leaves your accountant without the detail needed to understand how it relates to the sales records.

Make the connection visible: identify which settlement report explains each payout and where its supporting documents sit. Add a note where a customer paid under a different name or several invoices were settled together. Keep unresolved customer balances visible in the ledger.

Purchase invoices and receipts, matched to payments

Match purchase invoices and receipts to their ledger entries and payments. Give each document a stable reference that also appears in the transaction list, so your accountant can move from a bank line to the evidence without guessing from a filename.

For split payments or a payment covering several invoices, explain the allocation. Keep credit notes with the related purchase records. If a receipt cannot be found, record that openly in the missing list with the supplier, purpose and available evidence; do not substitute an unrelated document to fill the gap.

Director’s loan account movements and anything paid personally

A director’s loan is money taken from the company that is not salary, a dividend, an expense repayment or money previously paid into or lent to the company. The borrowing and amounts paid in are recorded in the director’s loan account.

Prepare a schedule of money paid in, money taken out, business purchases paid personally and repayments by the company. Attach the relevant documents and explain the purpose of each movement. Show personal purchases made with company money separately, rather than leaving your accountant to identify them from merchant names.

Assets, stock and money owed to and by the company

Collect purchase and disposal documents for assets bought or sold. Add a plain description of each item so your accountant can distinguish equipment from routine supplies without having to ask what an unfamiliar supplier sells.

Provide the year-end stock figure and the stocktaking records behind it. Include lists of unpaid customer invoices and supplier bills, plus loan statements or agreements relevant to outstanding balances. Note disputes, missing invoices and balances you cannot explain. A useful handover identifies uncertainty instead of hiding it inside a total.

Payroll, dividends and anything the director took out

The government’s guidance on taking money out of a limited company distinguishes salary, expenses and benefits, dividends, and director’s loans. Keep those categories clear in the handover.

Supply payroll reports, expense records, details of benefits and the dividend paperwork you hold. Match payments to the relevant records. If a transfer to a director has no clear explanation, flag it for review rather than deciding its treatment from the bank reference alone.

VAT returns filed in the year, if registered

Include copies of VAT returns filed in the year and their supporting reports. Identify the payments to, and refunds from, HMRC in the ledger. Add a note about anything already queried or awaiting correction so the accountant can follow the position you have handed over.

Keep the submitted versions clearly labelled. If a working spreadsheet differs from the filed return, explain which file is which rather than leaving both with similar names.

The things that cause the most follow-up questions

Unexplained transfers, missing receipts, personal spending and cash leave gaps that documents alone may not resolve. Add context beside the transaction while you still remember it.

• Transfers: identify the account on the other side and link the matching entry where available.
• Missing receipts: explain what was purchased, the business purpose and what evidence remains.
• Personal spending: identify it openly and ask your accountant to review the treatment.
• Cash: provide the cash record and supporting documents, with explanations for withdrawals and deposits.

Here is a hypothetical example. A company has 300 bank lines in the year, of which 40 have no document attached. If all are unexplained, that is 40 questions in the accountant’s first email. Working through a shared missing list turns the response into one consolidated reply:

The reconciliation is explicit: 28 + 9 + 3 = 40. The list shows what happened to every gap. Recording an explanation does not settle the tax treatment; the accountant still reviews the entries and supporting evidence. Keep that distinction visible in the status column.

How to send it: one package, not forty emails

Organise the handover around a summary, ledger, missing list and documents. Before sending, open the package yourself and follow an entry from the summary through to its supporting file. This catches broken references and attachments that never made it into the export.

The guide to what is in the accountant package explains that structure. Keep filenames descriptive and references consistent between the ledger and documents. Avoid renaming everything after sending, because the accountant’s questions may refer to those filenames.

Before you send receipts to your accountant, agree the delivery method. You can invite your accountant with read-only access so they can inspect the records directly. If they work in those systems, follow the guide to push records to FreeAgent or QuickBooks and agree which records they will review there.

If you are changing receipt tools, use the instructions to move your receipts from Dext or AutoEntry. Check the transferred documents against your ledger before preparing the handover, particularly where old references remain in the transaction descriptions.

Billfetch builds this package for you each month or at year end: a summary, every record, the missing list and the original documents in one ZIP, or read-only access for your accountant. How it works for accountants.

For later queries, update the existing missing list and point to the changed documents. That keeps year end bookkeeping discussions attached to the records being reviewed, rather than spread across messages with different versions of the same attachment.

New for directors: identity verification and software filing

Companies House identity verification became a legal requirement for directors and people with significant control (PSCs) from 18 November 2025. That date started a 12-month transition period; the date itself was not a deadline. Check the identity verification guidance for the route to the due dates that apply to your roles.

From 1 April 2028, companies must use commercial software to file accounts with Companies House, according to its annual accounts filing guidance. Agree with your accountant who will handle filing and which software they expect to use. Keep this administrative planning alongside the handover checklist.

General information, not advice. This is general information about UK rules at the time of writing, not advice about your circumstances. Check the linked GOV.UK guidance or speak to an accountant about your situation.