How deadlines are worked out

Three facts, everything else follows

Change any of them and every date that depends on it moves. Nothing is stored as a fixed due date, so correcting a mistyped year end fixes the whole schedule at once.

Why a client shows no dates

Almost always one of these:

• No first tax period set. Corporate tax dates need the first period end on the CT tab. Until it is there the desk will not guess.
• No VAT cycle. A client registered for VAT needs monthly or quarterly and a period end.
• The service is not ticked. A client with no CT service gets no CT dates. Check the Overview tab.
• They are marked below threshold. Deliberate — there is no return due.

The dashboard's Client onboarding card counts exactly these: clients missing a year end, an incorporation date, a service or an assigned accountant.

A client that is closing

Set the cessation date and the licence status, and the desk does three things: the final corporate tax period ends on the cessation date rather than running to the normal year end; the CT de-registration task is raised with a three-month deadline; and the VAT de-registration task is raised at 20 business days.

What counts as late

• A return is overdue when the due date has passed and it is not marked filed.
• A book month turns red when it ended more than 20 days ago and is not yet reconciled.
• A registration is past the deadline when the three-month window from incorporation has closed and the status is still not Registered.