Filing Accounts at Companies House

One of the requirements for limited companies is to file accounts at Companies House. It is the directors’ responsibility to file them and on time. Failing to do so, can get you a criminal record, a fine or disqualification.

There are more ways than one to file accounts at Companies House. The easiest way is to file them online (except LLPs). You will receive an email to confirm the accounts have been received and another email once the accounts have been registered. In the unlikely event that they get rejected, you will have the chance of resolving the issues straightaway rather than having to wait for a few days for the post.

The online services are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so there is no need to worry about any potential hiccups such as postal strikes or accounts getting lost in the post. There are also in-built checks to help you avoid mistakes.

With more and more businesses managing their records online, Companies House has recently introduced a new Web Filing account. It has improved security features such as multi-factor authentication and it will give you more freedom to self-manage your accounts. This is the first step in creating a single sign-in across all Companies House services, as part of the ongoing digitalisation of government processes.

Some of the new benefits are:

• the ability to link your company to your Web Filing account to give you more control over your filings
• the ability to digitally authorise people to file on your behalf on Web Filing and to remove authorisation
• to easily seeing who is digitally authorised to file for your company
• an option to sign up to emails to help you with the running of your company

If you have more than one company or file on behalf of more than one company, you can manage all your companies from one account. with a single sign-in. In addition, you will not need to enter the authentication code every time you file online once all the companies are linked to your account.

Remember late filing penalty fees will apply for any accounts that are filed after the deadline. The level of the penalty depends on how late the accounts are filed and accepted at Companies House.

The above penalties will be doubled if accounts are filed late in 2 consecutive financial years (beginning on or after 6 April 2008).

For most of you, RBP takes care of all of this through our Company Secretarial service, giving you peace of mind. Do contact us if you wish to know more.