UK group close calendar: Companies House deadlines and a 9-month filing timetable

When Does a UK Company Group Need to Consolidate?

For many UK startups, growth brings complexity. One day you are a single entity managing finances in Xero, and the next you have acquired a small competitor or established a subsidiary overseas. Suddenly, you are not just a company, you are a ‘group’. This transition introduces a new layer of financial responsibility and a strict statutory accounts filing timeline that often catches founders by surprise. The manual spreadsheets and ad-hoc reminders that once sufficed are no longer adequate. Aligning your internal processes with the official Companies House filing deadlines for startups becomes a non-negotiable part of scaling. This is not just about compliance; it is about building a robust financial foundation for your next fundraise.

The trigger for group accounting is not a matter of choice. In the UK, the legal framework is clear.

Under the Companies Act 2006, a parent company is required to prepare group accounts.

This means combining the financial statements of the parent and its subsidiary entities into one set of consolidated accounts, as if they were a single economic organisation.

However, there is a crucial exemption designed for smaller enterprises. A group may be exempt under the 'small group' exemption if it meets at least two of the following criteria for two consecutive years.

Turnover not more than £10.2 million; Balance sheet total not more than £5.1 million; Average number of employees not more than 50.

These thresholds can change, so it is important to check the latest FRC guidance for updates.

A common mistake is to assess these thresholds against the parent company alone. The critical distinction is that these criteria apply to the group's consolidated figures. You must aggregate the turnover, assets, and employees of all entities in the group to determine if you qualify. For a fast-growing SaaS or E-commerce startup, it is easy to cross these thresholds sooner than anticipated. This makes the need for preparing for annual accounts submission a sudden reality, often without the necessary systems in place.

Understanding Companies House Filing Deadlines for Startups

The statutory deadline for filing your accounts is absolute.

For a private limited company, statutory accounts must be filed with Companies House within 9 months of the financial year-end.

This is the final date for submission, not the date to begin the process. Missing this deadline has immediate financial consequences.

Automated late filing penalties for a private company start at £150 (up to one month late) and rise to £1,500 (over 6 months late).

You can find the exact bands and amounts on the official GOV.UK penalties table.

While these penalties are an unwelcome cost, the reputational damage can be far greater. A late filing is a public record and a significant red flag for investors during due diligence or for banks considering a loan. It signals poor financial controls and operational disorganisation, potentially undermining trust in your management team. Investors often scrutinise filing history as a proxy for financial discipline.

It is also important to distinguish this from another key filing. The Confirmation Statement is a separate filing due annually, typically 12 months after incorporation or the last statement date. This statement confirms the company's details, such as directors and shareholders, are correct on the public record, but it is not the same as the annual accounts and has its own deadline and penalty structure.

A 9-Month Statutory Accounts Filing Timeline

To avoid a last-minute scramble, a structured UK financial year end process is essential. What founders find actually works is creating a backward-looking timeline from the filing deadline. This approach transforms the statutory requirement into a manageable, multi-stage project, ensuring that preparing for annual accounts submission starts on day one, not in month eight.

The Foundation: Year-Round Financial Discipline

Before the nine-month countdown even begins, two foundational elements are crucial for a smooth group consolidation. Implementing these disciplines throughout the year is the most effective way to simplify the year-end process.

• Standardised Group Chart of Accounts: All entities must use the same core structure for their accounts. This prevents time-consuming and error-prone mapping exercises during consolidation. A shared structure also enables more meaningful group-level analysis and reporting year-round. For more guidance on pre-close discipline, review the Pre-Close Preparation Checklist.
  For example:4000 - Revenue: SaaS Subscriptions
4010 - Revenue: Professional Services
4020 - Revenue: E-commerce Product Sales
6100 - R&D: Salaries
6110 - R&D: Contractor Costs
• Consistent Accounting Policies: The group must decide on and document its policies for key areas like revenue recognition, asset capitalisation, and lease accounting under FRS 102. For example, a UK deeptech firm must ensure its policies for capitalising development costs are applied consistently across all subsidiaries to present a true and fair view of the group's assets.

The 9-Month Countdown to Your Deadline

This timeline breaks the complex task of group consolidation into logical, sequential steps, providing a clear roadmap from year-end to successful filing.

1. Months 1-3: Subsidiary Close and Reconciliation
   The process begins at the individual entity level. Each subsidiary must close its own books, finalising all necessary adjustments like accruals and prepayments in its accounting system, such as Xero. Crucially, subsidiaries must reconcile intercompany balances with each other during this period. Any mismatches must be identified and resolved now, not discovered months later. The output of this stage is a final, accurate trial balance for each entity.
2. Months 4-6: The Consolidation Engine Room
   With accurate trial balances from all subsidiaries, the central finance function can begin the consolidation. This involves collecting the data, adjusting for non-coterminous year-ends if necessary (e.g., preparing three months of management accounts for a subsidiary with a September year-end to align with the group's December year-end), and performing intercompany eliminations. An 'Intercompany Matrix' spreadsheet can help track these, confirming that for every intercompany receivable in one entity, there is a corresponding payable in another. Finally, consolidation adjustments for items like goodwill are posted, producing the first draft of the consolidated group trial balance.
3. Month 7: External Accountant Review
   The consolidated trial balance and all supporting schedules are handed over to your external accountants. Their role is to use this information to prepare the formal FRS 102 compliant statutory accounts and the corporation tax return. Providing them with a clean, well-reconciled package at this stage is critical to avoiding delays and extra fees.
4. Month 8: Final Review and Board Approval
   Your team reviews the draft statutory accounts from your accountants, checking for accuracy and completeness. Once satisfied, the accounts must be formally approved and signed by the board of directors. This is a legal requirement that signifies the board's responsibility for the financial statements.
5. Month 9: Filing Deadline
   The signed accounts are submitted to Companies House. The goal should always be to file in month eight. This leaves a one-month buffer to handle any unforeseen technical issues or last-minute questions, protecting you from the risk of late filing penalties.

Common Group Consolidation Delays and How to Avoid Them

Coordinating multiple subsidiary books to meet group consolidation deadlines UK is fraught with potential delays. Understanding these common mistakes is the first step to avoiding them and creating a more efficient UK compliance calendar.

1. Lingering Intercompany Mismatches

A scenario we repeatedly see is a UK parent invoicing its US subsidiary for a management fee in GBP. The parent records a receivable, the subsidiary a payable. By year-end, timing differences, invoice disputes, or foreign exchange rate fluctuations cause the balances to disagree. The resolution requires painstaking manual reconciliation, which can delay the entire close process by weeks.

• Solution: Implement a mandatory monthly intercompany reconciliation process. Both entities must agree and confirm their balances in writing (even a simple email suffices) every single month. Don't wait for year-end. This turns a year-end crisis into a routine monthly task.

2. Inconsistent Data and Policies

If one entity capitalises software development costs while another expenses them, the consolidated figures are meaningless until a manual, error-prone adjustment is made. This often happens when a startup acquires another company and fails to align its accounting policies post-acquisition.

• Solution: As mentioned in the calendar, a group-wide Chart of Accounts and a simple accounting policies document are non-negotiable. This standardisation is the single most effective way to accelerate the consolidation process and ensure the integrity of your financial data.

3. Misjudging the Timeline

The nine-month window after the year-end creates a false sense of security. Founders often assume this is the time they have to work on the accounts. In reality, a robust consolidation can take three to four months of internal effort, and external accountants need another one or two. This leaves very little room for error.

• Solution: Treat the financial year-end date as the project kick-off date. Use the countdown calendar to map out internal deadlines and resource allocation well in advance. Aligning internal and statutory closes means the process starts on day one of the new financial year, not halfway through.

4. Over-reliance on Manual Spreadsheets

For a group with two UK entities, a spreadsheet is often sufficient. But add a third entity, a foreign currency, and a few more intercompany transactions, and the spreadsheet becomes a liability. Formulas break, version control is lost, and the risk of material error skyrockets. There is no audit trail, making review difficult.

• Solution: Recognise the tipping point. When your group structure grows beyond two or three entities or involves multiple currencies, it is time to explore simple consolidation software that integrates with systems like Xero. This is not about buying a complex ERP; it is about automating the aggregation and elimination steps to ensure accuracy and speed. E-commerce businesses should pay special attention to inventory cut-off procedures; see the inventory-focused calendar for more specific guidance.

Your Action Plan: Creating a Robust Companies House Filing Checklist

Navigating your first group consolidation is a significant operational milestone. Moving from theory to action requires a pragmatic approach focused on building a scalable process. Here are four steps to take now.

1. Confirm Your Consolidation Status Immediately
   Do not assume you are exempt. Pull the latest management accounts for all group entities, add them together, and compare the consolidated turnover, balance sheet total, and employee count against the small group exemption thresholds. This five-minute check determines your legal obligations for the year and is the essential first step.
2. Standardise Your Financial Foundation
   The highest-leverage activity you can undertake is to create and enforce a group-wide Chart of Accounts and a brief accounting policies manual. This preemptively solves the most common and time-consuming consolidation challenges related to data consistency and comparability, saving dozens of hours at year-end.
3. Institute a Monthly Intercompany Health Check
   The root of most consolidation delays is unreconciled intercompany balances. Mandate that finance owners in each entity formally agree their balances with every other group entity, every single month. This simple discipline prevents small discrepancies from becoming major year-end problems.
4. Build Your Countdown Calendar
   Use the 9-month structure in this article as a template to create your own statutory accounts filing timeline. Assign specific owners and internal due dates for each stage, from the subsidiary close to the final board approval. This turns abstract deadlines into a concrete project plan and forms the core of your Companies House filing checklist. For designing coordinated month-end schedules, review the Multi-Entity Close Calendar and the Excel Close Calendar Template for a practical approach.

Continue planning and automating your close processes at the Close Calendar Design & Automation hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What happens if a subsidiary has a different financial year-end from the parent company?
A: UK law requires the subsidiary's accounts to be aligned with the parent's year-end for consolidation. This is typically done by preparing management accounts for the subsidiary covering the period needed to match the parent's year-end. For example, you might prepare a 3-month P&L and Balance Sheet to bridge the gap.

Q: Can I get an extension on my Companies House filing deadline?
A: Extensions are rarely granted and only happen in exceptional circumstances, such as an unforeseen event that affects the company's ability to prepare its accounts. You cannot apply for an extension simply because you need more time. It is critical to plan to meet the original statutory accounts filing timeline.

Q: Do I need an auditor for my small group accounts?
A: A group that qualifies under the 'small group' exemption is also typically exempt from a statutory audit. However, you may still choose to have a voluntary audit for investor or lender assurance. Always check the latest audit exemption criteria, as they are separate from the consolidation thresholds.