Help Centre · Accountant Workflow · 1 min read

The accountant workflow: from firm setup to filed accounts and CT600

The map of the journey: set your firm's filing credentials once, then create each client and file accounts and Corporation Tax through the two wizards.

Filing for clients from Tax Optimiser splits neatly in two: things you set up once for your firm, and things you do per client. Get the firm side right first and every subsequent filing — statutory accounts to Companies House, the CT600 to HMRC — reuses it automatically.

Once per firm

  • Companies House Presenter ID and password — your firm’s software-filing account with Companies House, entered on the Companies House tab of Firm Settings.
  • HMRC Sender Id and password — your firm’s Government Gateway login, entered on the HMRC tab. Once saved, it files Corporation Tax for every client as their agent.
  • Credits — firms pay for filings with credits rather than a per-period fee; one credit covers a period’s filings to both Companies House and HMRC.

The detail, including how to obtain a Presenter ID, is in Firm settings for filing.

Once per client

  1. Create the organisation — either straight from the Companies House register by searching the company name, or by name only (sole traders, partnerships, or companies you’ll complete manually). See Creating client organisations.
  2. Complete the company record — Companies House number, authentication code and Corporation Tax UTR. The period’s Setup Process Checklist tracks what’s still missing.
  3. Prepare the period — trial balance, accounts and the Corporation Tax computation. See Preparing the period for the map through all three stages.
The Organisations list - every client your firm manages, with filtering by accountant, manager and partner

Then, for every period

Two guided wizards do the filing: accounts to Companies House and the CT600 to HMRC. Both check the same pre-flight list — credentials, authentication code, signed accounts — and both draw on your firm-level settings, unless a client has their own (see Whose credentials file what).

Next: Firm settings for filing: Presenter ID and Government Gateway.

The short version

The accountant workflow: from firm setup to filed accounts and CT600 — in brief

Firm-level setup happens once: the Companies House Presenter ID, the Government Gateway login, and filing credits.

Per client you create the organisation, complete its company record and prepare the period - then the two submission wizards file to Companies House and HMRC.

The Setup Process Checklist on each period shows exactly what is still missing before you can file.