Ireland · Financial statements, the annual return and audit

Company size, the financial year and the duty to keep accounting records

the Companies Act 2014 · sections 272 to 274, 277, 277A, 280A, 280B, 281 to 285 and 288

Retention is the duty companies discover too late. An accounting record required to be kept by section 281, and any information or return referred to in section 283(2), must be preserved by the company for at least 6 years after the end of the financial year to which it relates (section 285). Where accounting records are kept outside the State, information and returns dealing with the business must be sent to and kept at a place in the State (section 283(2)).

Size classification drives the rest of Part 6, and it is not a matter of impression. Sections 280A and 280B set the qualifying conditions for a company and for a group, and the average number of employees is determined by applying the methods specified in section 317 (section 280A(6)). The group figures are ascertained by aggregating the equivalent figures for each member of the group (section 280B(7)), taken from each subsidiary undertaking's own entity financial statements for the relevant financial year (section 280B(9)).

Statutory financial statements must be prepared in accordance with Schedule 3, 3A, 3B, 4 or 4A as the case may be, together with the relevant requirements the Part imposes (section 272(2)). A company's discretion over the length of its financial year and over its annual return date is subject to the overall limitation section 273(1) states, so the two dates cannot be moved independently of one another without regard to that limit. A requirement on the directors to prepare financial statements is satisfied by the statements being caused to be prepared by them (section 274(6)).

Where a company chooses to do a thing that section 277 permits, the provisions the Part requires to be complied with, and the provisions section 277(3) specifies, apply to the doing of it. Obligations and rights that arise on approval of financial statements by the directors arise equally in the case section 277A(2) describes. Except where there are substantial reasons not to do so, which must be disclosed in the notes, the directors of a holding company must secure the alignment section 288(3) requires.

Working files 42 and 43 of the IE-COMPANY agent toolkit cover this situation. Working file 42 works through the financial year, the annual return date, the size classification of the company and of any group, and the accounting standards applied. Working file 43 works through the accounting records themselves: what is kept, where it is kept, who has access, what is sent into the State where records are held abroad, and how the 6-year retention is enforced.

• Working file 42 · Company size classification and the financial year
• Working file 43 · Accounting records: content, location, access and retention

ComplianceSME tracks the Companies Act 2014 and updates the toolkit on your account through the Compliance Complete account, so that you are never working from a superseded version. Compliance Complete

• Preparing entity and group financial statements
• Disclosing directors' remuneration, loans and other transactions
• Notes on related undertakings, staff numbers, capital and financial assistance
• Approving and signing the financial statements and the directors' report
• The audit requirement, the audit exemption and the dormant company exemption
• Circulating the financial statements and delivering the annual return
• Revising defective financial statements and reports
• Appointing, removing and replacing the statutory auditor

The Irish library holds all 75 situations →