Year-end accounts checklist (UK): closing the books for sole traders and companies

Year end is the one close each year that somebody outside the business will read. The accountant builds statutory accounts and tax returns on the figures the bookkeeper hands over, and every gap in those figures comes back as a query, a delay, or a bill. A bookkeeper’s job at year end is not to prepare the accounts. It is to hand over books that are complete, reconciled, and explained, on a date that leaves the accountant room to work. This checklist is organised around that handover: what to do before the year end, on the day, and after it. Deadlines are HMRC’s and Companies House’s own, linked in the Sources section.

Two kinds of year end

UK clients fall into two groups with different clocks.

For the tax year that ended on 5 April 2026, the online Self Assessment deadline is 11:59pm on 31 January 2027 ^[1] . Sole traders and landlords mandated into Making Tax Digital for Income Tax also send quarterly updates through the year; see the MTD for Income Tax guide. All dates are collected in UK tax deadlines.

A first set of company accounts has a longer deadline: 21 months after the date the company registered with Companies House ^[2] . New directors often read that as “nearly two years” and forget that Corporation Tax for the first period falls due well before it.

Six weeks before the year end

Year end goes well when nothing about it is new. Use the weeks before to remove surprises.

• Bring every reconciliation up to date. Bank, cards, loans, receivables, payables. Problems found now are a month old; found in June they are a year old.
• Send the missing-documents list for the year to date, and tell the client the cut-off. See how to stop chasing client receipts.
• Clear suspense and clearing accounts. Anything still unexplained goes on a query list for the owner.
• Review the director’s loan account for company clients, and tell the accountant the balance before the year end, not after.
• Check the fixed asset register against what the business actually has. Note disposals and scrapped items.
• Plan the stock count: date, who counts, and the valuation basis used last year.
• Tell the accountant about one-off events: a new loan, a property purchase, a grant, a dispute, a change in what the business does.
• Confirm the payroll timetable for the last pay run of the tax year.

Decisions about the timing of large purchases, dividends, bonuses, and pension contributions belong with the client and their accountant. Your part is making sure they have current figures to decide on.

At the year end

Some things can only be done on the day.

• Count stock and work in progress at the close of business, and keep the count sheets.
• Count petty cash and any undeposited takings.
• Record the cut-off. Note the last sales invoice number and the last goods-received note of the year, so that sales and purchases on either side of the date land in the right year.
• Save bank and card balances as at the year-end date.
• List what has been received but not invoiced, and what has been invoiced but not delivered.

After the year end: closing the books

Work through the balance sheet in order. Each line needs outside evidence; the method is in the month-end close process, applied with more care.

1. Bank, cards, and loans reconciled to statements at the year-end date. Keep the statements.
2. Receivables agreed to the aged listing. Flag debts unlikely to be paid; the accountant decides on provisions.
3. Payables agreed to the aged listing and to supplier statements for the largest balances.
4. Stock adjusted to the count and valuation.
5. Accruals for costs incurred but not billed by the year end, and prepayments for costs paid in advance. A schedule for each, with the basis.
6. Fixed assets: additions with invoices, disposals with proceeds. Leave capital allowances to the accountant, but give them a clean register.
7. VAT control account agreed to the returns filed in the year. The filing workflow is in how to do a VAT return.
8. Payroll control accounts agreed to payroll reports and payments to HMRC.
9. Director’s loan account and dividends: every entry supported by paperwork.
10. Profit and loss review: each line against last year, with a note for anything that moved sharply.

Payroll year end

Payroll runs to the tax year whatever the company’s own year end is. HMRC’s timetable ^[3] :

Lock the year

When the books are final, lock them. In Xero, set a lock date under Accounting settings, Financial settings; once set, users cannot add or edit transactions dated on or before it ^[4] . Xero has two lock dates: set the one that applies to all users except administrators first, and the one that applies to everyone once the accountant confirms the accounts are signed. The accountant’s year-end journals should be posted before the final lock so the ledger agrees to the filed accounts.

The handover pack

Send one pack, complete, with an index. An accountant who has to ask for items one at a time will take three times as long.

• Trial balance at the year end, with the ledger locked.
• Bank and loan statements at the year-end date, with reconciliations.
• Aged receivables and aged payables.
• Stock count sheets and valuation.
• Schedules of accruals and prepayments.
• Fixed asset additions and disposals with invoices.
• VAT returns for the year and the control account reconciliation.
• Payroll year-end reports.
• Director’s loan account analysis and dividend paperwork.
• A note of one-off events and open queries.

What makes each schedule acceptable to a reviewer is covered in workpapers and audit trail. How long to keep it all is in UK record-keeping requirements.

A timetable to work to

For a company with a 31 March year end, as an illustration:

The statutory deadlines are nine months away, but a pack sent in April gets the client’s tax bill known by summer. That is the real value of an early close.

Where ExpenseFlow fits

Year end is easier when purchases have been complete and evidenced all year. ExpenseFlow captures bills and receipts as they arise (by upload, a per-client email address, or Google Drive), reads each line, and assigns an account and VAT treatment. Items are held in a review queue until a person approves them, then synced to Xero or QuickBooks Online. In Xero the source document is attached to the transaction, so when the accountant queries a cost in the profit and loss, the invoice is one click away.

ExpenseFlow does not post year-end adjustments, prepare statutory accounts, or file returns with HMRC or Companies House.