An accountant needs five kinds of information from a small business: bank and finance statements, sales records, purchase and expense records, payroll and pension data if you employ anyone, and explanations for anything the numbers cannot say on their own. Hand those over complete and most accountancy work runs quickly. Hand them over with gaps and you pay for the time spent chasing.

Here is what each category covers and why it is asked for.

Bank statements and finance accounts

Statements for every business bank account, covering the whole period, are the backbone of the job. The accountant reconciles your records against them, so a missing month is a hole in the whole year. The same applies to:

  • Business credit card statements
  • Loan and finance agreements, including new borrowing taken out during the year
  • Merchant or payment provider statements if customers pay you through one

If personal accounts were used for business transactions (common in the first year), say so and identify the entries. Pretending it did not happen just moves the problem to later.

Sales records

Every sales invoice or record of income for the period, including invoices raised but not yet paid. Unpaid invoices still belong in the right year, and the accountant needs to see which customers owe you money at the year-end date. If you sell for cash or through a till, the takings records matter just as much as invoices.

Purchases and expenses

Supplier bills, receipts and expense claims, again including bills received but not yet paid. Two things trip businesses up here:

  • Missing receipts. GOV.UK expects you to keep records supporting your figures, and unevidenced costs are the first thing questioned in any HMRC check.
  • Mixed personal and business spending. Flag it rather than burying it. An accountant can deal with a clearly identified personal transaction in seconds; an unexplained one takes correspondence.

Payroll, pensions and people

If you employ staff, or pay yourself through a company payroll, the accountant needs the payroll reports for the year, pension contribution records and details of any expenses or benefits provided to employees or directors. If someone else runs your payroll, access to their reports is usually enough.

The explanations only you can give

Numbers describe what happened; they rarely explain why. The accountant will ask about:

  • Large or unusual transactions
  • Money you put into or took out of the business
  • Assets bought, sold or scrapped during the year
  • Anything unlikely to be collected from customers
  • Changes during the year, such as new premises, new activity, a price change or a dispute

Answering these upfront, in a short note with your records, saves a round of emails later.

How the list changes with your situation

A sole trader with simple affairs may need little beyond bank statements, income records and expenses. A VAT-registered company with staff adds VAT records, payroll and statutory registers. And the task matters as much as the structure: preparing a tax return needs one set of information, while a cash-flow forecast or business plan needs assumptions about the future too. If your immediate task is a personal tax return, our companion guide to what an accountant needs for Self Assessment covers that specific list.

For the year-end version of this exercise, with everything in checklist form, see the year-end checklist for small businesses.

Formats: software access beats shoeboxes

If you keep records in accounting software, giving your accountant access is the cleanest handover: no exports, no version confusion. Spreadsheets work if they are complete and consistent. A bag of paper receipts works too, but you will pay for the sorting time. Whatever the format, the test is the same: could someone who was not there reconstruct the year from what you have provided?

Frequently asked questions

When should I send my accountant this information?

As soon as practical after the period ends, or continuously if you share software access. Early information means early filing, early knowledge of any tax due and time to fix problems. Current deadlines are on GOV.UK, but working to the deadline is how errors happen.

What if some of my records are missing?

Tell your accountant what is missing rather than submitting an incomplete picture. Statements can be re-requested from banks, duplicate invoices from suppliers. Genuine gaps can sometimes be estimated, but that is a judgement for the accountant to make openly, not a gap to be papered over.

Do I still need to keep records after handing them over?

Yes. The legal duty to keep records sits with you, not your accountant, and GOV.UK sets out the retention periods. Keep your own copies of everything.

Will my accountant check the information or just use it?

A competent accountant checks. Reconciliations, sense checks and queries are part of the job. That review is how errors get caught before they reach a filed return. This checking role is part of the wider picture in what an accountant does for a small business.

Can my accountant get information directly from HMRC?

Once authorised as your agent, an accountant can see certain information HMRC holds and can deal with HMRC for you. That complements your records; it does not replace them.

How we can help

Good handovers start with good bookkeeping. Our bookkeeping service keeps records complete through the year, so nothing needs reconstructing at the end. Request a quote and we will tell you exactly what we would need from you.