The report
Xero, QuickBooks and Sage each have a trial balance report. Run it at the last day of the company's financial year and export it to Excel or CSV.
Guide · The year end
Your CT600 and company accounts from a Xero, QuickBooks or Sage trial balance.
Your books are kept. What is left at the year end is the statutory accounts, the Corporation Tax computation and the Company Tax Return - all made from the same figures. Here is how to take them from the trial balance your software already gives you, without moving your books anywhere.
Step one
Export the trial balance at the year end.
Before closing entries
Take it before the year is closed off, so the income and cost accounts still show the year's figures rather than one profit line. If the year is already closed, last year's closing trial balance and this year's movements tell the same story.
Last year's too
The accounts show last year beside this year, so last year's closing trial balance comes in as well - unless these are the company's first accounts.
What is made from it
Three documents, one set of figures.
The statutory accounts
In the format the company qualifies for - micro-entity, small, full - checked against the trial balance to the pound, approved by the directors and filed at Companies House.
The tax computation
How the accounts' profit becomes the profit taxed: what tax adds back and takes off, the capital allowances, any losses - in HMRC's own layout, as the inline XBRL file HMRC takes with the return.
The Company Tax Return
The CT600, its boxes filled from the computation, with loans to directors on its CT600A page where there are any - sent to HMRC with the accounts and the computation attached.
With Stoneledger Accounts Filing
Keep your software. Bring in the trial balance. File both.
- 1
Read as your software writes it
Columns are read by what they mean - an account's name, its code where there is one, debit and credit or one balance - so Sage's "N/C" is read as the code and Xero's account codes are used as they are.
- 2
Every line placed and shown
Placed from its name, its code and its sign, and the same line in last year's trial balance follows it. A line the rules cannot place is asked about, never guessed.
- 3
Seen free, then filed
The accounts, the tax and the return are on screen before you pay. £8 once for the company's year files the accounts at Companies House and the return at HMRC.
- 4
Nothing changes in your books
Your bookkeeping stays where it is. A handover file lists every line of the trial balance and where it went, for your records or an accountant.
Not for every return: one that needs a supplementary page other than loans to participators (CT600A) - group relief or research and development relief, for instance - goes through other software.
Your trial balance in. Your company's accounts out.
And the Company Tax Return with them: see them free, then £8 once for the year, filed at Companies House and HMRC. No trial balance to hand? Type the year's figures in instead.
Xero, QuickBooks and Sage are trademarks of their owners; Stoneledger is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by them. This guide explains the process; it is not tax or legal advice. Stoneledger is independent of HMRC and Companies House.