Changes to the Way SMEs File Their Accounts with Companies House

Changes to UK company law removed the option for small companies to file abbreviated accounts for accounting periods starting on or after 1 January 2016.

If you’re a small company you now have the following 3 options for filing your accounts:

1.  Micro-Entity Accounts

You must meet at least 2 of the following:

• turnover is no more than £632,000
• balance sheet total is no more than £316,000
• average number of employees is no more than 10

To file micro-entity accounts you need to sign-in to Companies House's WebFiling service and choose the micro-entity accounts type.

2.  Abridged Accounts

You must meet at least 2 of the following:

• turnover is no more than £10.2 million
• balance sheet total is no more than £5.1 million
• average number of employees is no more than 50

Companies' House is constructing a replacement service for WebFiling that will enable you to file abridged accounts to Companies House.  This is expected to be launched by the summer.  During the transitional period there are two options for you to consider:

• Use the Companies House-HMRC joint filing service (Visit HMRC to use the joint filing accounts service).
• Use third party software - the more documents you file, the more appropriate software filing is likely to be.  You can view Companies House's list of approved software providers by following the link at the end of this post.

3.  Full Accounts with Companies House and HMRC

These joint accounts are suitable for small companies who are audit exempt and wish to file full accounts to both Companies House and HMRC.   You can also file your tax return with HMRC at the same time.

Further Information

You can view Companies House's updated guidance by clicking here.