This is one for you accounting reference date gurus.......I have prepared to submit online with HMRC for a Ltd Co........and have finally got the Co House log-in details to input in the system. The online stats periods offered to me in the HMRC online service were from April 2012 to March 31 2013 which is what I would have expected (first year accounts for company incorporated April 2 2012) and the period I have prepared accounts for. However.....now that I have the Co House log-in details, the company overview states that the accounts due for the period to April 30 2013 are due by January 2nd!!
So....does this mean that I have to change the date in the companies house website before I go any further? Or, is there any benefit to having a date such as end April?? If I don't adjust the date in Co House website, then providing accounts to that date will prove troublesome since I have ran them to end March.
This is all very last minute so would really appreciate your help!! Thanks!! : )
As the company was incorporated on 2 April 2012 then the year end will have been defaulted to 30 April (the end of the month when the company was incorporated). Therefore the first period accounts will be the period to 30 April 2013 which are due to be filed 21 months after incorporation ie 2 January 2014.
Tax period for HMRC will be for the period 2 April 2012 to 30 April 2013 (assuming the company became active the day of incorporation). As this is more than 12 months will be split into periods 2 April 2012 to 1 April 2013 then period 2 April 2013 to 30 April 2013.
As things stand you have to prepare accounts at Companies House to 30 April 2013. If this is going to prove difficult then the easiest thing would be to change the year end to 31 March 2013. You will have do this this before the accounts are due ie you need to do it by 2 January 2014. If you have the Company Authentication Code you will be able to do this online at Companies House quite easily and quickly. However given you have changed the period end to 31 March 2013 this will bring the submission date of the accounts with Companies House to a slightly earlier day of 9 months from the period end ie 31 December 2013 so you will need to submit them at Companies House by Tuesday.
You would then prepare a company tax return for the period 2 April 2012 to 31 March 2013. Though this isnt due until 31 March 2014 (but nothing to stop you submitting them earlier). Any tax will be due to be paid by 1 January 2014 (if not paid by then interest will accrue).
Thanks Mark.....I know how to change the reference date online (and have the log-in credentials) and this seems the best bet. When I first accessed the HMRC filing service, it offered me two periods. I chose the period from April 2012 to 31 March 2013.......I assume the other period was from 1st April 2013 to 30 April 2013....although I didn't pay attention to this, I thought it may have been the subsequent year (i.e., April 2013 to March 2014).
If the second option had been the 'short' period, that would explain things. I did wonder how it could be 'joint filing' if the periods were different.
All very last minute anyway and even have some queries on the content/notes of the accounts! Now I have to change reference date and hope it all goes through asap!! Hopefully the online service will steer me in the right direction as far as notes goes and I can sit down with the details from Sage/Excel and work my way through it!
