I have a new client who has just formed a Ltd company, and has started trading. However, he has asked if his first year can run for longer than 12 months, as he'd like to tie in with the financial year end of March. Therefore he wants to trade his first year from now, Nov 2010 to March 2012; - a total of 17 months. I had a feeling I'd read somewhere on the HMRC website that you can do this in your first year, but cannot now find the details! My questions therefore are :- 1) Is this allowable with HMRC. There must surely be a maximum amount of months you can have as a first year? and, 2) If I put his accounts on Sage, how can I show his first few months figures, when sage only accounts for 12 periods in a financial year?
I believe the maximum lenght is 18 months so 17 months should be fine.
I'd personally set sage up with a March year end, so the first year on Sage would start in April 2010, which will mean it will finish March 2011. In April next year, I'd then do a shut down, roll forward and do the next 12 months as normal. At the end of next year (March 2011) I'd combine the two TBs and you'd have everything you need to do the accounts.
