The BeanBalance Timeline

Every limited company in the UK needs to complete a set of tasks on a yearly basis. HMRC and Companies House charge hefty penalties for late or non-completion of these tasks.

The BeanBalance Timeline will:

  • tell you exactly what you have to do
  • when you have to do it
  • and best of all, how to do it
  • and, it's 100% free
  • We will even send you notification emails to remind you when a task is due

Have a look at our Timelime Introduction Video, or have a look to see if your company name is available

If you already have a limited company you can
import your existing company to BeanBalance

If you're unable to watch the video, you can read the transcript here.

Timeline Introduction Video Transcript

Hi there and welcome to this introduction to the BeanBalance timeline. In this video I’m going to tell you what the BeanBalance timeline is, why it was created, and most importantly, how it can help you manage your limited company. Ok, so let’s get started.

Every limited company in the UK, whether trading or not, has a list of tasks, or statutory legal filing requirements it has to complete every year, as laid out by HMRC and Companies House.

Some of these tasks are always due on the same day of the year, like a P11D for instance. So no matter when you incorporated your company, your P11D will always be due on the same day of the year.

Other tasks are not so straight forward. For instance your company’s annual return. The due date of your annual return will depend on your company’s incorporation date. Same goes for your company financials and company tax return.

Other tasks are not so straight forward. For instance your company’s annual return. The due date of your annual return will depend on your company’s incorporation date. Same goes for your company financials and company tax return.

So as you can see, the complexity of managing a company’s tax affairs can increase dramatically in a very short time.

But there is more bad news unfortunately. HMRC and Companies House will hit you with penalties if you file a required document late, or not at all. A penalty can be as little as a £100 for the late filing of a director’s Self Assessment tax return, or it can be a lot worse. For instance, if you do not submit your company’s Annual Return to Companies House, you company will eventually be struck off the Companies House Register. And if that happens, Companies House will notify your bank that your company was removed from the register, your bank will in turn close your business bank accounts and transfer any funds in these accounts to the Crown. And don’t think they won’t, we’ve dealt with a lot of companies like this, it happens regularly.

So the bottom line is, you really want to know what’s required, and by when it’s required when it comes to managing a limited company.

So how can you make 100% sure that you never miss a filing deadline? Well, you can employ an accountant. But if you’ve a new start –up an accountant could be expensive, especially if you’re not really trading through the company yet.

Or you can do your own research and try and construct your own list of due dates. But research takes time, tax laws can change, and not all deadlines are relevant to all companies. For instance a P35 is only due if you’re PAYE registered.

At BeanBalance we were asking the same questions, what can we do to make sure that you, as our client, are not hit with late filing penalties? And how can we make sure it’s easy to understand and relevant to your specific situation?

Enter the BeanBalance Timeline. It’s free, it’s easy to use, and it’s specifically customised for your limited company. But we went even further. We didn’t just stop at filing deadlines. We asked ourselves, what does every new start-up need to do to start trading? What does a director of a limited company have to complete and do after the company incorporation?

It’s all good and well to say the company’s first Annual Return is due on this and this date, but what about the less obvious tasks that also need to be completed, the things nobody tells you about until it’s too late?

Take for instance a Self Assessment Personal Tax Return. Every director of a limited company needs to submit a Self Assessment tax return. This self assessment has nothing to do with your company, but because you are, or were, a director of a limited company you have to complete this return.

But there’s more to it. To be able to submit your Self Assessment you need a UTR number. Without a UTR number you won’t be able to submit your Self Assessment. And the application for and issuing of a UTR number can take up to 6 weeks to complete. So even if you knew your Self Assessment was due on the 31st of January, and you tried to complete it a couple of days before the due date, you couldn’t submit the return because you didn’t have a UTR number. Nobody told you, the result, a £100 penalty. Now you know, but it was an expensive lesson.

When we developed the BeanBalance timeline we took everything into account. We asked ourselves, what does a director HAVE to do and know to avoid any nasty surprises? We took all of these actions and tasks and added them to the Timeline.

The BeanBalance Timeline isn’t just a timeline with tax reminders, it’s also a great ‘to-do’ list. Complete the tasks on the timeline and you’ll be in complete control of your company, even if you already have an accountant that looks after your company’s tax affairs. It can’t hurt to double check if your accountant is doing what he or she is supposed to do.

So now you have a list of tasks on your timeline, you know what to do and when to do it. But how do you actually DO it? This is where the BeanBalance timeline REALLY shines. Your timeline will include detailed instructions on how to complete any tasks that can realistically be completed by somebody who is not a qualified accountant. Submitting an Annual Return (also known as an ASR) to Companies House is not that difficult. You just need to know how to do it. Why pay an accountant to do it if BeanBalance already provide you with detailed, free instructions on how to complete it yourself?

And the same goes for VAT registrations, PAYE registrations, corporation tax registrations and UTR number applications. If it’s possible to complete on your own, without assistance from an accountant, we’ll show you exactly how to complete it. And it’s 100% free.

This all sounds great and I’m sure you’re as excited about this service as we are, but the reality is you don’t really want to log on to BeanBalance every day to see what is due and when it’s due. The whole idea is to save time, not waste it.

So to make sure we take up as little of your time as possible we’ve also added a fully customisable reminder system to the timeline. The reminder system will notify you via email before a task is due. And you can customise it to send to any email address at any time prior to the task’s due date.

For instance, if you always want to receive a reminder email 2 weeks before a task is due, you can set this under the global timeline reminder settings. But you can go further. BeanBalance allows you to set a reminder date and email address for each and every task.

Task specific reminder settings will override the global settings. So if you set your timeline’s global settings to send you an email to abc@gmail.com 2 weeks before the task is due, BeanBalance will always do this, except if, for instance, you go to your Self Assessment task and change the reminder settings for this specific task to send an email to def@yahoo.com 1 week before the self assessment is due. In this case BeanBalance will still send email reminders to abc@gmail.com to all tasks except the Self Assessment task. For the self assessment task BeanBalance will send an email to def@yahoo.com 1 week before the task is due.

So what it comes down to is that task specific reminder settings override the global settings. The system is totally flexible and very easy to use.

To remove a task from your timeline you simply complete it by entering the relevant information (if required). To complete a UTR number task, simply enter your UTR number and the task will be removed from your timeline.

And that’s it. So in summary:

The BeanBalance Timeline shows you exactly what you need to do.
It shows you exactly how to do it.
And it makes sure you know when to do it by reminding you in advance of any upcoming task.

And this is just the start. We have a lot more exciting features in the pipeline for BeanBalance and the BeanBalance timeline. We hope you find this service helpful and we’re confident that the BeanBalance timeline will remove vast majority of the complexity and frustration associated with managing a limited company.

Please let us know what you think of the Timeline, or any other service offered on BeanBalance.com. You can contact us via email at info@beanbalance.com. All new development on BeanBalance is customer driven. If you want it, let us know. If there’s a big enough demand for something we’ll build it.

Thanks for watching!