Filing deadlines at Companies House and Charity Commission

With month-end just around the corner, and the pandemic continuing to impact many organisations, you may find that your charity is not in a position to file its accounts with Companies House or the Charity Commission on time.

If your financial statements are subject to audit, you will be aware that extensive work is being carried out on going concern, to assess the likely position of the entity twelve months from the date of approval. This could mean the trustees or your auditors aren’t yet in a position to approve the accounts. On the other hand, the audit or independent examination work may not be complete in time if documentation is not readily available or queries have not yet been resolved.

On 27 June this year, Companies House approved an automatic three-month extension to filing deadlines during Covid-19, meaning that if your accounting period end date is 31 December 2019, you have until 31 December 2020 to file those financial statements with Companies House. The extension applies to any financial statements due in between now and 5 April 2021.

It should, however, be noted that the filing deadline for the submission of accounts to the Charity Commission has not been automatically extended, and remains ten months after the year-end. Likewise, your annual return may be due in the near future. Therefore if you require more time, you should apply for an extension with the Charity Commission, by emailing [email protected]. Any filing extension application must be made before the original filing deadline. So in our example above, the Charity Commission cut off date for filing, and so by extension also the deadline to ask for additional time to submit your documentation, is 31 October 2020.

A word of warning – although there are no penalties issued by the Charity Commission, late filings do appear permanently on public record. As always, if you require our assistance with your filing requirements, please do not hesitate to contact us using the form below.

This post was written by Alice Boesen, Manager and charity sector specialist.