tax-year-pack

---
name: tax-year-pack
description: Builds the exact list of documents a UK small business needs for its year end or VAT quarter, checks what the owner already has, names every gap, and hands the accountant a tidy pack.
---

# Every document your accountant will ask for, gathered and named

You say what the business is and when its period ends. You get back a named, dated checklist of every document, marked as held or missing, plus a one page cover note your accountant can read in two minutes.

## What it does

1. **Ask three questions before touching anything:** what the business is in law (sole trader, partnership, or limited company), whether it is VAT registered and on which scheme, and the exact date the period ends. Every list below changes with those three answers, and a pack built on the wrong one gets sent straight back.
2. **Print the deadline at the top and count the days left.** GOV.UK gives them as: annual accounts to Companies House "9 months after your company's financial year ends", the Company Tax Return "12 months after your accounting period for Corporation Tax ends", and Corporation Tax payable "9 months and 1 day after your 'accounting period' for Corporation Tax ends". A VAT return and its payment share one deadline, "usually one calendar month and 7 days after the end of an accounting period". Sole traders work to 31 January.
3. **Build the document list from the legal form, never from a generic template.** For a sole trader, GOV.UK names all sales and income, all business expenses, VAT records if registered, PAYE records if employing people, personal income, and any grants claimed. A limited company adds all money received and spent, assets the company owns, debts it owes and is owed, stock held at the year end with the stocktakings behind that figure, and goods bought and sold with the names of who they came from and went to.
4. **Turn "receipts" into named lines.** GOV.UK sets out the acceptable proof as "all receipts for goods and stock, bank statements, chequebook stubs, sales invoices, till rolls and bank slips". Write each one as its own line with the exact months it must cover. One line saying "receipts" is how a pack ends up three months short.
5. **For a VAT quarter, list the VAT records separately from everything else:** copies of every invoice issued, every invoice received, self billing agreements together with the name, address and VAT number of each self billing supplier, debit and credit notes, a record of goods given away or taken for private use, purchases and sales that were zero rated, reduced rate or exempt, bank statements, cash books, cheque stubs, paying in slips and till rolls, and the VAT account itself. Note whether the records are being kept digitally, which VAT registered businesses must do unless they are exempt.
6. **Check what the owner actually holds and mark every line Held, Missing or Partial.** Partial is only allowed with the months named, for example "bank statements held January to July, missing August and September". Read the folder or the file list if there is one; ask a single grouped question if there is not.
7. **Rename every file to one pattern so the accountant can sort it once:** `YYYY-MM-DD_supplier_type_amount`, for example `2026-03-14_screwfix_receipt_84-20.pdf`. Group into folders by month, then by sales, purchases, bank, payroll, VAT. Never renumber or reorder a document the accountant has already been sent.
8. **Write the retention line on the pack, quoted from GOV.UK, matching the legal form.** VAT records: "at least 6 years (or 10 years if you are using the VAT One Stop Shop (OSS) scheme or used the VAT Mini One Stop Shop (MOSS) scheme)". Self Assessment records: "at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline", and 15 months after filing where a return goes in more than 4 years late. Limited company records: "6 years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to", with GOV.UK warning that directors can be fined £3,000 by HMRC or disqualified for failing to keep proper accounting records.
9. **Finish with a one page cover note for the accountant:** period covered, legal form, VAT scheme, what is in the pack, what is missing and why, and a short list of the questions only they can answer. Leave those questions unanswered.

## Then it checks

1. Every line on the checklist carries a status. A blank status means the check has not been done, not that the document is fine.
2. The period end date and the filing deadline both appear at the top, and the deadline has been compared with today's date. If it has already passed, that is said in the first line rather than left for the accountant to notice.
3. Every Partial and Missing line names the months, the supplier or the account it relates to. "Some bank statements missing" fails this check.
4. Nothing in the pack states whether a cost is allowable, whether VAT can be reclaimed, or how anything should be treated. Those belong in the questions list.
5. The retention period quoted matches the legal form chosen in step 1, and the wording matches the GOV.UK page it came from.
6. Every file follows the one naming pattern and the folders sort in date order.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- This is not tax advice and must never be presented as it. It gathers, names and lists documents so that a qualified accountant or tax adviser can do the work.
- Never decide whether an expense is allowable, whether VAT can be reclaimed, or which scheme a business should be on. Write the question down and pass it to the accountant.
- Never reconstruct, estimate or fill in a missing receipt, invoice or figure. A missing document stays marked missing.
- Re-read the GOV.UK page before quoting a retention period or a deadline. These pages change, and a quoted figure that is a year out of date is worse than no figure.

## Built from
- Anthropic, "Introducing Claude for Small Business", https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-for-small-business, published 13 May 2026: the named "Tax-season organizer" workflow, and the shape of the month end job, "export a close packet you can forward straight to your accountant". The idea of ending with a single packet handed to the accountant, rather than a running commentary, comes from here.
- GOV.UK, "Keeping VAT records", https://www.gov.uk/charge-reclaim-record-vat/keeping-vat-records: the VAT record list in step 5 and the retention wording in step 8, quoted as printed, including the 10 year OSS and MOSS exception and the requirement to keep records digitally unless exempt.
- GOV.UK, "Business records if you're self-employed", https://www.gov.uk/self-employed-records: the sole trader record list in step 3, the proof list in step 4, and the "at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline" retention period with the 15 month rule for very late returns.
- GOV.UK, "Running a limited company: company and accounting records", https://www.gov.uk/running-a-limited-company/company-and-accounting-records: the limited company record list in step 3, the "6 years from the end of the last company financial year they relate to" retention period, and the £3,000 fine or disqualification warning.
- GOV.UK, "VAT Returns: deadlines" and "Prepare annual accounts for a private limited company: deadlines", https://www.gov.uk/vat-returns/deadlines and https://www.gov.uk/prepare-file-annual-accounts-for-limited-company/deadlines: the four deadlines quoted in step 2.