First-year accounts for limited company in Sherborne

First-year accounts for new Sherborne companies

Your first accounts normally cover a little over twelve months, running from the day you incorporated to your accounting reference date, and the period can never be longer than 18 months. For most companies the first accounts are due 21 months after incorporation. You must also register for Corporation Tax within three months of starting to trade.

First company accounts for Sherborne businesses: local facts

Sherborne is in the Dorset council area, in the South West region. In Dorset, 16,150 of the 18,000 VAT- and PAYE-registered businesses in the 2026 ONS count have fewer than ten employees, around 90%. If you run a company in Sherborne, you are in good company.

The largest groups of micro businesses in Dorset are construction (2,675), professional, scientific and technical services (2,200) and wholesale and retail (2,155). For construction companies in Sherborne, Construction Industry Scheme deductions, retentions and stage payments can distort profit, so we reconcile your CIS statements before the accounts are prepared. That puts construction at 17% of the local micro-business base.

Zooming in, the ONS neighbourhood area around Sherborne (Dorset 004) has 390 VAT- or PAYE-registered businesses, and 320 of them (82%) are micro businesses.

Dorset ranks 144 of the 1105 areas we serve by number of micro businesses, and its micro share of 90% is in line with the 89% average across them. In professional, scientific and technical services (2,200 micro businesses in Dorset), fee income, work in progress at the year end and how directors are paid are the key decisions, so we plan these with you before the accounts are finalised. In wholesale and retail (2,155 micro businesses in Dorset), closing stock and the VAT treatment of different product lines are the usual pressure points, so we value stock carefully and check your VAT records.