From 1 April 2028, all accounts must be filed using commercial software, in a tagged digital format called iXBRL. Companies House will close its web-based and paper filing routes for accounts on that date. The confirmation statement, director changes and other statutory filings stay on the web service. It is accounts specifically that move to software only.

This applies whether you file your own accounts or your accountant files them for you. If you are one of the many owner-managed companies that still types figures straight into the Companies House web form each year, that option disappears. You will need suitable software, or an agent who files through it.

Note. iXBRL is not just a PDF. It tags every figure so it can be read, aggregated and compared automatically. That is the real significance of this change: your numbers become machine-readable data that Companies House, HMRC and law enforcement can cross-check at scale. We come back to why that matters below

The big one for small companies: you must now file a profit and loss account

This is the change that will affect the most businesses. At the moment, a small company can file “filleted” accounts, essentially a balance sheet, and keep its profit and loss account off the public register entirely. Your turnover, your margins and your profit stay private. That option is ending.

From April 2028, both small companies and micro-entities must file a profit and loss account, as larger companies already do. Micro-entities will file a balance sheet, profit and loss account and, where relevant, the auditor’s report. Small companies will file a balance sheet, profit and loss account and auditor’s report (unless exempt). The long-standing ability to shield your trading figures from public view is being removed.

“But can’t I just opt out of publishing it?”

Yes, and this is the point most commentary gets dangerously half-right. Small companies and micro-entities will be able to opt out of publishing the profit and loss on the public register, so your competitors and the general public need not see it. Companies House has said it will confirm how the opt-out works in due course.

But opting out of publication does not mean opting out of filing. The profit and loss account is still submitted, and the legislation is explicit that Companies House, law enforcement and HMRC will have access to it regardless of whether it is published. So the privacy you keep is from your competitors, not from the taxman.

Warning! Because these figures will be filed digitally and tagged, HMRC will be able to read and benchmark your profit and loss automatically, year on year, against businesses like yours. Having worked inside HMRC, we can tell you exactly what that enables: margins that drift out of line with your sector, or profits that jump around without explanation, are precisely the anomalies that get a return pulled for a closer look. From April 2028 there is nowhere for a weak set of figures to hide. The answer is not to worry. It is to make sure your accounts are right, consistent and defensible before they are filed.

Abridged accounts are being abolished

Separately from filleting, small companies can currently prepare “abridged” accounts (a less detailed set, with certain figures combined) where all the shareholders agree. From April 2028 that option goes too. Small companies will prepare and file a full set of accounts. Combined with the profit and loss change, the direction is unmistakable: less that can be left out, more that must be shown.

Claiming audit exemption? Your directors will have to sign a stronger statement

If your company claims exemption from audit, as most small companies do, the balance sheet will need to carry an enhanced statement from the directors. It is no longer enough to state that an audit is not required. Your directors will have to specify exactly which exemption they are claiming and confirm that the company actually qualifies for it.

That raises the stakes on getting the small-company judgement right, because it is now a positive, named declaration on the public record. A company qualifies as small if, for accounting periods beginning on or after 6 April 2025, it meets at least two of three tests: turnover of no more than £15 million, a balance sheet total of no more than £7.5 million, and no more than 50 employees on average.

Example. Whitegate Trading Ltd has grown fast: turnover of £16.2 million, a balance sheet total of £4 million and 38 employees. The director assumes the company is still small because it is well under the employee and balance-sheet limits. But it now fails the turnover test, and meeting only one of the three tests is not enough. The company is no longer small and is not entitled to audit exemption. Under the new rules, signing the enhanced exemption statement anyway would be a false declaration on the register. This is exactly the sort of threshold slip we catch before it becomes a problem, and where an audit, handled by a Chartered Tax Adviser-led firm, becomes an opportunity to save tax rather than just a cost.

What about the directors’ report?

Here the picture is moving. The 2023 Act originally changed the rules on the small-company directors’ report, but the government has since announced, as part of its wider modernising of corporate reporting, that it intends to remove the requirement for any company to produce a directors’ report at all. So the expectation now is that this particular requirement will fall away rather than expand. It is a good example of why you should take reform commentary written a year ago with caution. The detail is still shifting, and we track it so you do not have to.

A quieter change: shortening your accounting reference period

Companies House is also limiting how often you can shorten your accounting reference period, the date to which your accounts are made up. Shortening the period can currently be used to move filing deadlines around. Under the new rules, if you want to shorten it more than once in five years, you will have to give a business reason. It is a narrow change, but if you have ever used a short accounting period as a planning tool, it is one to be aware of.

What should you do now?

April 2028 is closer than the 21-month headline suggests, because the changes apply to accounts filed on or after that date, which means the accounting year you are in now, or soon will be, is the one that gets caught. Three practical steps:

First, if you file your own accounts through the Companies House web service, plan your move to compatible software, or to an agent who files through it, well before the deadline. Second, if you have relied on filleted accounts to keep your profit private, think now about what a published, or at least filed, profit and loss account means for you commercially and for your tax position. Third, if you claim audit exemption, check that you genuinely qualify against the current thresholds before your directors have to certify it.

Tip. Do not treat this as a box-ticking exercise for 2028. The moment your profit and loss becomes filed, digital data, the quality of your accounts stops being a private matter between you and your bookkeeper and starts being something HMRC can read at a glance. The businesses that get ahead of this, with tidy figures, correct treatment and consistency year on year, are the ones that will never hear from an Inspector about it.

How Merit helps?

Most firms will treat these reforms as a filing-software problem. We do not. As Chartered Tax Advisers, we look at what filing a profit and loss account actually exposes, and make sure the numbers behind it are not only correct but structured to stand up to the automated scrutiny that comes with digital filing. Because members of our team have worked inside HMRC, we know how tagged accounts data is used once it is filed, and we prepare your figures accordingly. And because we have built and run our own businesses, we understand the commercial reality of your trading figures becoming visible, and we plan around it rather than simply reporting it.

The move to software-only, profit-and-loss filing is also the natural moment to check that your company is filing in the most tax-efficient shape possible. In most cases, the tax we save clients through that review more than covers our fee.

Want to get ahead of the 2028 Companies House changes? Merit Accountants are Chartered Tax Advisers and former HMRC insiders. We will make sure your accounts are ready for software-only, profit-and-loss filing, and that the figures you file are working as hard as they can for your tax position. Book a conversation with a Chartered Tax Adviser.