Visitor Register Now
site map  |  help

Home > > Limited Companies > Companies Act 2006 > Accounting records

Accounting Records

Every company must keep adequate accounting records that are sufficient to:

  1. Show and explain the company's transactions and to disclose with reasonable accuracy, at any time, the financial position of the company at that time and to enable the directors to ensure that any accounts required to be prepared comply with the requirements of the Act.

  2. The records must contain entries from day to day of all sums of money received and expended by the company and the matters in respect of which the receipt and expenditure takes place.

  3. A record of the assets and liabilities of the company.

  4. Where the company's business involves dealing in goods, the accounting records must enable the company to establish the statement of stock at the end of each financial year end including the stock taking records. This applies except in the case of goods sold by way of ordinary retail trade, statements of all goods sold and purchased, showing the goods and the buyers and sellers in sufficient detail to enable all these to be identified.

Retention of company records

The following table indicates the length of time company records should be maintained;

Private companies Public companies
Number of years from the date on which they are made three years six years
Morris Owen Chartered Accountants (Swindon & Cirencester) registered to carry on audit work by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
Registered with the Chartered Institute of Taxation as a firm of chartered tax advisers.

Morris Owen Chartered Accountants - 43-45 Devizes Rd, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN1 4BG
and Dyer House, Dyer Street Cirencester, Gloucestershire, GL7 2PP
VAT Reg No. 194 8155 30