Bulletin 2008/4 has recently been issued by the APB and deals with reports on abbreviated accounts delivered to the Registrar at Companies House when the full accounts have been audited. Like others relating to the Companies Act 2006 it applies to accounting periods commencing on or after 6 April 2008. Special auditor’s reports on abbreviated accounts in respect of earlier periods must continue to be prepared in accordance with APB Bulletin 2006/5.

It relates to both small and medium-sized companies but only if the full accounts were audited; therefore it does not apply if the company is small and claims exemption from audit. A small company claiming exemption from audit can either file the full accounts or abbreviated accounts; in either case it need not file any accountant’s compilation report that might have been issued. Abbreviated accounts can only be prepared if the full accounts are prepared adopting UK GAAP rather than IAS; the UK GAAP accounts can be either complying with full UK FRS or the UK FRSSE. The full accounts of a small company not claiming exemption from audit and the full accounts of a medium-sized company will require an audit and an auditor’s report but it is not that report, but the special report dealt with in this bulletin, that must be prepared and filed with abbreviated accounts, if such accounts rather than full accounts are going to be delivered to the Registrar.

Changes from previous bulletin

The contents of this bulletin are in fact very similar to the previous bulletin, the majority of the changes being simply to change the Companies Act references. This bulletin, like the previous one, contains the following 3 example reports by way of appendix:-

1 Small company

2 Medium-sized company

3 Small company including other information – emphasis of matter paragraph regarding a material uncertainty (going concern); in this case the emphasis of matter paragraph in the audit report on the full accounts is repeated in this report on the abbreviated accounts.

The only changes are to refer to Bulletin 2008/4 rather than Bulletin 2006/3, to give Companies Act 2006 references rather than Companies Act 1985, and for the report to be signed by the senior statutory auditor for and on behalf of the registered auditor (see Alan Bonham’s article for more information on senior statutory auditor). It is anticipated that the same auditors will report on both the full accounts and the abbreviated accounts, but the bulletin gives guidance if this is not the case.

This bulletin does give a fourth example report:-

4 Medium-sized company including a paragraph regarding a material inconsistency between the full annual accounts and the directors’ report; the example is where the business review in the directors’ report is not consistent with the full accounts. Remember it is only medium-sized companies, not small, that need to include the directors’ report in the abbreviated accounts.

Additional material in latest bulletin

The previous bulletin dealt solely with the entitlement to deliver abbreviated accounts and the special report of the auditor. This bulletin covers, for each of small and medium-sized companies, accounts sent to members, accounts placed on public record, delivering to the Registrar abbreviated accounts and accounts other than abbreviated. These are summarised in a new appendix which gives the requirements in columnar format for:-

- Small companies with columns for each of full accounts, full balance sheet only, full abbreviated accounts and abbreviated balance sheet only. When you read this appendix you will see that there a number of options available to small companies as to what can be filed with the Registrar.

- Medium-sized companies; there are columns showing the filing options for full accounts and abbreviated accounts.

The full text of bulletin 2008/4 can be downloaded from the APB website in PDF format at http://www.frc.org.uk/apb/publications/pub1594.html

John Major 
May 2008