Two phone calls last month, both from Rotherham construction Ltd directors who'd done everything right. Hired chartered firms. Paid the fees. Handed over the books. Both of them got to October without a single conversation about their year-end. By the time we spoke, one was a fortnight from a Companies House late-filing penalty he didn't know was coming. The other had missed the 19 July Class 1A NIC payment on his P11D and was sitting on £100 of default plus interest. I'm Sarah Bingham, AAT-qualified, based in Wath upon Dearne. Same borough as you.
Why a Rotherham-borough construction Ltd hires its own borough's accountant
The two stories I opened with aren't unusual. Most generalist accountants treat a Rotherham construction Ltd as a once-a-year filing job. They prep your accounts in November. They file before the December deadline. You don't hear from them in between.
The trouble is that the construction year has more moments than the year-end. P11D in July. Second payment on account at the end of the month after. Companies House nine months after year-end. Self assessment in January. Year-end timing decisions in February and March. A generalist won't surface those for you until they've already arrived.
The way we run a Rotherham Ltd's books is the opposite. Twelve months of work that has a rhythm — deadlines, decisions, reviews — walked through with you before each piece arrives. Same borough. Same year. Same accountant returning your call. Look properly. Every year. At everything.
For the topical depth on CIS, the Domestic Reverse Charge, R&D and capital allowances, the construction accountants hub has the full picture.
April to June: the tax year resets and last year's accounts go in
The construction year in Yorkshire mostly runs on a March year-end. The new tax year starts on 6 April, last year's numbers need filing, and the rates for the year ahead change overnight. HMRC publishes the new figures — for 2026/27 that meant Employment Allowance moving to £10,500, new NI thresholds, and the main-pool writing-down allowance dropping from 18% to 14% on 1 April 2026.
What we do in this quarter for a Rotherham construction Ltd. Year-end accounts and the corporation tax return get prepared from your bookkeeping data, and we review the prior year's CIS suffered to make sure every penny is reconciled before the file closes. P60s go out to staff by 31 May.
The P11D return on benefits in kind (company vans, fuel, anything else) gets drafted in May ready for the 6 July deadline. New tax-year rates get loaded into your payroll software, and if your year-end was March the new WDA rate kicks in on any plant you bought after 1 April. We also do the new-year salary-versus-dividend review for directors so you know what you're drawing and why.
If you've made a major plant purchase, this is the quarter to sense-check whether the bring-into-use date and the allowance treatment line up. AIA stays at £1m and Full Expensing stays at 100% for limited companies — but the asset has to be in use, not just bought.
July to September: P11D, second payment on account, mid-year retention review
Three things tend to fall in this quarter. The first is the 6 July P11D submission deadline. If your Rotherham Ltd has directors with company vans, fuel benefits or any other taxable employer-provided benefit, the P11D return needs to be with HMRC by the 6th, and the related Class 1A NIC payment by 19 July (or 22 July if you pay electronically).
The second is the 31 July second payment on account for self assessment. That affects any director who also draws a personal self-assessment income — most subcontractors-turned-Ltd directors do. The payment is based on last year's tax liability, half of it now and half in January.
The third is the one your accountant probably isn't doing for you. Mid-year is the right time to look at retentions across the active book and check what should already have come back. Practical-completion retentions released six months ago should have been chased by now.
Defects-period retentions due back next year should be on a schedule with the release date already diarised. Most Rotherham Ltds we onboard arrive with five-figure retentions sitting unrecovered because nobody had eyes on the schedule. I find money. Not just somewhere to file it.
October to December: the autumn budget, the Companies House clock, year-end forecasting
Autumn brings the budget, and the budget tends to bring at least one thing that changes the books — a threshold moves, an allowance ends, a relief gets tightened.
We read the announcements on the day and tell each Rotherham construction Ltd client within a week what's actually changed for them, plainly, in writing. Not every announcement matters to every firm; most years, two or three of them will.
The Companies House clock is the harder deadline. For a Ltd with a March year-end, the filing deadline at Companies House is 31 December — exactly nine months after year-end. Miss it and the late-filing penalties start at £150 and escalate fast. We file every client's accounts well inside that window, usually with two months to spare, and the CT600 corporation tax return follows separately within the 12-month HMRC window.
This quarter is also when year-end forecasting gets serious. By the start of November we should know your likely full-year profit within a small margin, and we use that to make the dividend, salary, plant and pension decisions that move tax outcomes before the year actually ends.
A directors' review meeting in mid-November is the rhythm I'd push every Rotherham construction Ltd into. Management accounts by the 15th of each month feed this directly.
January to March: self assessment overflow, year-end timing, dividends and plant before 5 April
The 31 January self-assessment deadline takes the start of this quarter. Every director with a personal SA return, every subcontractor who's still got sole-trader income alongside the Ltd, every landlord on your books — all need filing online by midnight on the 31st.
We aim to have every Rotherham client's return drafted by mid-December, signed off through January, filed at the latest by 20 January so the system isn't overloaded on the final day.
Then comes year-end timing. For March year-end Ltds, February and March are the last six to eight weeks where you can actually move tax outcomes for the year. Three decisions usually dominate.
First, dividends — declaring before the year-end uses the current year's basic-rate band rather than rolling into the next.
Second, plant purchases — anything bought and brought into use before the year-end gets AIA or Full Expensing at 100%. Anything where the bring-into-use date slips past 31 March gets relegated to the 14% writing-down allowance and takes years to write off.
Third, pension contributions — annual allowance work for directors and any salary-sacrifice exercise needs to clear payroll before the tax year ends.
The tax year ends on 5 April, and on 6 April the cycle starts again. Same borough. Same year ahead. Same accountant on your phone.