Five documents your accountant needs every month

A monthly close is only as good as what reaches the accountant. Most delays we see in small and mid-sized businesses have nothing to do with the accounting itself: they come from documents that arrive late, arrive incomplete or never arrive at all. If five things reach your accountant early every month, the close becomes predictable, the VAT return on the 20th is calm and the numbers you read are numbers you can trust.

1. Bank statements

Bank statements are the backbone of the books. Every payment in and out has to be matched to an invoice, a payroll, a tax payment or a transfer between your own accounts. Send statements for every account the business uses, including savings accounts, foreign currency accounts and card accounts, for the full calendar month. An export from online banking is usually better than a PDF because it can be imported directly. If an account is missing, the books are incomplete, however good the rest of the work is.

2. Purchase invoices

Every purchase invoice the business received during the month: suppliers, rent, utilities, software subscriptions, fuel and professional services. Purchase invoices support your costs and, for VAT-registered businesses, the input VAT you deduct. An invoice that is missing at the close is either a cost left out of the month or a VAT deduction claimed late. Ask suppliers to send invoices to a single address so nothing waits in someone's personal inbox.

3. Sales invoices

A copy of every sales invoice issued during the month, together with any credit notes. If you issue invoices from accounting or invoicing software, your accountant may be able to read them directly; if you issue them by hand or in a spreadsheet, send the full sequence so that gaps are visible. Sales invoices drive revenue, receivables and output VAT, so a missing one changes three numbers at once.

4. Payroll changes

Payroll is calculated from facts only you know. Tell your accountant before the payroll is run about:

• new employees and their start dates, and anyone leaving with their last working day;
• changes in gross salary, bonuses or other payments;
• unpaid leave, long absences or changes in working hours;
• a change in an employee's main employer status, which decides whether the 0%, 8% and 10% brackets apply or the flat 10% rate.

Wage tax and pension contributions are declared and paid by the 15th of the following month, so payroll information needs to arrive well before then.

5. New or changed contracts

Contracts explain transactions that invoices alone do not. A new lease, a loan, a supplier agreement with payment terms, a customer contract with milestones, an employment contract or an amendment to any of them can change how a transaction is recorded, when revenue is recognised or which tax applies. Send a copy whenever something is signed or changed, not only when the first invoice arrives.

A simple monthly routine

Send them once, in one place

Email threads, messaging apps and paper folders are where documents get lost. Our clients upload everything through the Ura client portal: bank statements, invoices, contracts and payroll changes go into one place, are matched to the right month and are visible to both sides. Document requests from our team appear in the portal with a due date, so it is always clear what is still missing. Invoices uploaded there are read automatically and checked by an accountant before anything is booked.

The fastest close is not the one with the best accountant. It is the one where the documents arrive on day three.

If your accountant still chases you for documents in the second half of the month, the fix is usually a routine rather than more effort. Agree the five items above, the dates and the channel, and hold each other to them.