After incorporating a limited company, you – the company director – will be responsible for ensuring your company meets its deadlines.
Two dates that you don’t want to pass you by are your confirmation statement and annual account due dates.
Fortunately – if you formed your company with 1st Formations – we can help make sure you never miss a deadline again. Here’s how.
Turn on your confirmation statement and annual account notifications
Our email notifications are a handy, free tool that will help you meet your confirmation statement or annual account deadlines.
We’ll email you as your due dates approach and also once they’ve passed – allowing you to act swiftly to avoid costly penalties (more on this in a bit).
To switch your notifications on:
- Go to 1st Formations
- Select ‘Client Login’ from the top-right corner of the screen
- Enter your username and password
- Select ‘My Details’
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen to the ‘Notifications’ section
- Tick ‘Confirmation Statement’ and ‘Accounts’ – then select ‘Update Details’
You’re all set! Emails will then be sent to your ‘Primary’ email address. This address can be checked and updated on the ‘My Details’ area of your account.
Here’s why you shouldn’t miss your deadlines
The confirmation statement is a Companies House filing responsibility that must be delivered on an annual basis. Its purpose is to ‘check and confirm’ that Companies House has the correct information for your limited company.
Failure to meet your statement due date is a criminal offence, as you will be in breach of the Companies Act 2006. This can result in your company being closed down and your company officers being fined up to £5,000.
Annual accounts are a Companies House and HMRC filing responsibility that also must be delivered on an annual basis (although your first set of accounts are only due within 21 months of your company incorporation). The purpose of annual accounts is to provide Companies House and HMRC with financial information about your company.
Again, failure to meet this deadline is a criminal offence. If you do eventually file, you will have to pay a penalty – the total depending on how late you are. If you don’t file at all, your company will be closed down and in certain instances you may be prosecuted.
It’s important to stress that your company must file a confirmation statement and annual accounts whether you’re trading or not.
Trading status does not impact the type of confirmation statement that is prepared, whereas non-trading companies can file an abbreviated set of annual accounts known as dormant company accounts.
We can help file your confirmation statement and dormant company accounts
Once we’ve made you aware of your deadlines, we can also prepare and file your confirmation statement and dormant company accounts. We recommend contacting an accountant when it comes to preparing accounts for a trading company.
We hope you have found this blog post helpful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions.
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