What do I need before I start?
For the accounts
- The company number and name.
- The start and end dates of the year, and whether these are the company's first accounts.
- The names of the directors, and which director is approving.
- Your company's Companies House authentication code. How to find it. It comes by post and can take up to 10 working days, so ask early.
- Your balance sheet figures for the year, and last year's figures if you filed before. If you filed with us last year, we have them.
- For a trading company: turnover and the average number of employees.
[Draft note: PRESENTER ACCOUNT: PLACEHOLDER, DO NOT PUBLISH. Companies House's own pages tell users of software to set up an online filing account to get a presenter ID and presenter authentication code. Our design uses one presenter account held by Yearfile. Question 7 in COMPANIES-HOUSE-PACK.md asks Companies House which is right. When it answers, either delete this note or add: "You will also need a Companies House presenter ID and presenter authentication code. [How to get them.]" and change the help pages and the app to match.]
For the Company Tax Return (trading companies)
- The company's Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR).
- The company's Government Gateway user ID and password. How to find them.
- Your profit or loss, and a few details about spending on equipment, if any.
You do not need
- Accounting software.
- To install anything. Yearfile runs in your browser.