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Corporation tax: the payment dates UK small companies get wrong

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Corporation tax is one of the few taxes where the two most important dates are different, and that difference catches small companies out every year. The payment deadline and the filing deadline fall months apart, and treating them as the same date is how interest charges and penalties start. Here are the dates that matter, and the mistakes that turn them into money lost. 1. The payment deadline: 9 months and 1 day after year end For most small companies, corporation tax is due 9 months and 1 day after the end of the accounting period. A company with a 31 December year end pays its corporation tax by 1 October the following year. A company with a 31 March year end pays by 1 January. This is a single payment of the full amount. There are no instalments for a small company, and no reminder that feels urgent until the date is close. The practical step is to diary the date at the same time the year end is closed, not when the accounts are nearly finished. If the accounts are prepared i...
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The weekly finance routine that keeps a care home out of trouble

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Care homes do not usually get into financial difficulty in one dramatic moment. It happens slowly: a week of invoices left unprocessed, a payroll correction carried into the next run, a management pack that arrives after the decisions it should have informed. By the time the problem is visible, it is already a month old. The fix is rarely a bigger finance team. It is a weekly routine that matches the rhythm of the home. The starting point is resident billing. Fees come from self-funders, local authority placements and NHS Continuing Healthcare funding, and each stream has its own rates and timing. When billing goes out late, cash collection slips with it, and the operator is left chasing money that should already be in the bank. A fixed billing day each week, with the same checks every time, keeps income current and queries small. Payroll is the second weekly discipline. Rotas change, shifts swap, and agency workers sit alongside employed staff, so hours must be collected in one form...
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VAT reverse charge for construction: the checks that keep CIS contractors compliant

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The domestic VAT reverse charge for construction has been in force since March 2021, and it still catches contractors out. The rule is simple in principle: when a VAT-registered business supplies construction services to another VAT-registered business for onward supply, the customer accounts for the VAT instead of the supplier. The supplier issues an invoice with no VAT charged, and the customer records both the output VAT and the input VAT on the same return. No cash changes hands for the VAT, and the scope for missing trader fraud disappears. In practice, the rule creates a string of small decisions on every invoice, and getting any one of them wrong creates a VAT error that HMRC can pick up at a compliance check. Here are the checks that keep a construction business compliant. 1. Confirm the reverse charge applies to this job The reverse charge covers specified construction services supplied between VAT-registered businesses where the customer will make an onward supply of the s...
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Self-assessment: the December checks that make the 31 January deadline painless

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Every January the same story repeats. Sole traders, landlords, and company directors who meant to file early are suddenly chasing missing figures in the last week of the month, and the 31 January self-assessment deadline turns a routine return into a stressful one. The rush is almost never caused by a difficult return. It is caused by December passing without a few simple checks. The fix is not complicated. A short December routine, done once, takes the pressure out of January completely. Here is what to check, and why each step matters. 1. Confirm you are registered, and your login works This sounds basic, but it is the check that causes the most last-minute panic. If this is your first self-assessment return, you need a Unique Taxpayer Reference, and it can take up to 10 working days to arrive by post. If you already have one, sign in to your HMRC online account now and confirm the password still works. Accountants see the same problem every year: a client who has not logged in for e...
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Three-way matching in accounts payable: the check that stops duplicate payments

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Duplicate supplier payments are one of the quietest leaks in a small business. Nobody sets out to pay an invoice twice, yet it happens all the time: the same invoice arrives by email and by post, a credit note never gets matched, or an urgent payment goes through while the original is still sitting in the approval queue. The money leaves the bank, the supplier says nothing, and the error only surfaces months later, if it surfaces at all. There is a simple control that stops most of this, and it has been standard practice in larger finance teams for years. It is called three-way matching, and any business that pays more than a handful of supplier invoices a month can use it. What three-way matching actually is Three-way matching is a check that runs before an invoice is approved for payment. It compares three documents that should all agree with each other: (1) the purchase order, which shows what was ordered and at what price; (2) the goods received note or delivery confirmation, which...
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Payroll outsourcing: the November checks that make the tax year-end painless

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Payroll rarely makes the headlines in a small business, and that is exactly why it causes trouble. It runs quietly every week or month, until one wrong tax code, one missed starter form, or one late RTI submission turns into a penalty letter, an unhappy employee, or a scramble at year-end. November is the right month to fix that, because there is still time to correct the record before the tax year closes in April. For many small firms, the practical answer is payroll outsourcing. Handing the routine to a specialist team does not mean losing control of pay. It means the checks happen on time, every time, while the business keeps the decisions that matter, such as who gets paid what and when. Here are the November checks worth running now, whether payroll stays in house or moves to an outsourced team. 1. Check every employee record against HMRC Start with the basics. Confirm that each employee's tax code, National Insurance number, and starter or leaver details match what HMRC holds...
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Month-end close in 5 days: the routine that keeps December books clean

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December is the month when sloppy bookkeeping finally catches up with a business. The Christmas rush pushes invoices, receipts and expenses to the side, and by January the books are a mess, the VAT return is a scramble, and the accountant is asking questions nobody can answer quickly. The fix is not a heroic January clean-up. It is a short, repeatable month-end close routine, done in five working days, every single month. A month-end close is simply the point where you stop, check, and lock the month down. Nothing is left half-posted, nothing is guessed at, and the numbers you report are the numbers that actually happened. Here is a routine that works for most UK small businesses, and it fits into five days without taking over the week. Day 1: Get everything in Start with the paperwork. Chase the missing bits now, not on day 5. Supplier invoices that arrived by email, till receipts, card statements, mileage claims, and any expenses paid from a personal account all need to be in the sys...
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