Financial statement preparation & accounts finalisation.
Year-end accounts closed properly - trial balance scrutinised, ledgers cleaned, balances confirmed, and financial statements drawn in Schedule III format with full notes. Prepared by our team, reviewed by a chartered accountant, handed to your auditor in a state they can work with.
For companies, LLPs, partnership firms and proprietorships. Quoted per engagement, after we have seen the books.
Four offices - Kolkata, Delhi, Gurugram, Pune · In-house CA and CS team · Accounting practice led by Deepak Jaiswal, FCA
Reviewed by CA & CS Team · Regikart · Last updated 7 September 2026
What financial statement preparation actually is
It is the work that turns a year of postings into a signed, filed set of accounts. Not data entry, not audit. It sits between the two, and it is the part most businesses underestimate.
Bookkeeping, finalisation and audit are three different jobs
| Bookkeeping | Financial statement preparation | Statutory audit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Recording transactions as they happen | Closing the year, correcting and completing the books, drawing up the statements | Forming an independent opinion on those statements |
| When | Daily and monthly | After year end, once the books are complete | After the statements are ready |
| Output | Ledgers and a trial balance | Balance sheet, profit and loss, cash flow, notes | An audit report and opinion |
| Who can do it | An accountant | An accountant, reviewed by a CA | Only a chartered accountant in practice, appointed as auditor |
| Responsibility | The company | The company - management owns the statements | The auditor owns the opinion, not the numbers |
The last row is the one people get wrong. Your auditor does not prepare your accounts. Management is responsible for the financial statements; the auditor examines them and says whether they give a true and fair view. Handing an auditor a raw trial balance and expecting finalised statements back misreads the relationship, and in most cases the auditor cannot legally oblige.
These are also not your monthly management reports. An MIS pack is internal, monthly and formatted however suits you. Financial statements are annual, statutory and prescribed, and they are what the Registrar, the bank and the assessing officer read. Both come from the same ledgers - when they disagree, one of them is wrong. See MIS reporting for the monthly side.
We prepare them. Your auditor audits them. Never the same firm.
A firm cannot audit financial statements it prepared for the same client. Section 144 of the Companies Act, 2013 bars an auditor from rendering accounting and bookkeeping services to the company it audits, or to that company's holding or subsidiary. ICAI's Code of Ethics arrives at the same place through the self-review threat.
So the clean arrangement is two firms. We prepare and finalise; your statutory auditor audits. If Regikart is already the auditor for an entity, we will not also finalise its accounts, and we say so at the first call.
This matters commercially, not only ethically. Firms that quietly do both create an audit-quality problem that surfaces at the worst moment - a due diligence, a bank's credit review, an inspection of the auditor. If a provider offers to do both, ask how they intend to satisfy Section 144.
What a company's financial statements must contain
For a company the format is not a choice. Section 129 of the Companies Act, 2013 requires financial statements to give a true and fair view and to comply with the form prescribed in Schedule III. Deviating is not a stylistic decision; it is a defect in the accounts.
- 01
Balance Sheet
As at the year end, in the prescribed vertical form with prior-year comparatives.
- 02
Statement of Profit and Loss
For the year, again with comparatives.
- 03
Cash Flow Statement
With an exemption worth knowing. A one person company, a small company and a dormant company need not include one. If you sit near the small company thresholds under Section 2(85), check your position each year rather than assuming last year's answer holds.
- 04
Statement of Changes in Equity, where applicable
The most misunderstood component. It is a Division II requirement, applying to companies preparing accounts under Ind AS. A Division I company does not prepare one - movements in share capital and in reserves and surplus go in the notes instead. Anyone selling you a Division I set with a SOCIE bolted on has copied a template.
- 05
Notes to Accounts
Carrying the significant accounting policies and the detail behind each line - share capital and shareholding above 5 percent, reserves and their movement, borrowings with security and repayment terms, receivables and payables ageing, contingent liabilities, related party disclosures under AS 18, earnings per share, auditor's remuneration.
The notes are where a set of accounts is made or broken, and the part most often reduced to a copied template. If your notes describe an inventory policy you do not follow, the accounts are wrong even when the numbers add up.
Division I or Division II - which one applies to you
Division I applies to companies preparing accounts under the Accounting Standards. Division II applies to those preparing accounts under Ind AS. A further division covers NBFCs applying Ind AS.
Almost every private limited and small unlisted company in India sits in Division I. Ind AS applicability is driven by listing status and net worth thresholds, and if you are inside it you generally know already. If you are not certain, that is the first question we settle - it changes the format, the disclosures and the note structure entirely.
TallyPrime 7.1, released in May 2026, added Schedule III Division I financial statement output. For Division I companies already on TallyPrime that removes a chunk of manual regrouping. It does not do the finalisation: the trial balance still has to be scrutinised, the balances confirmed, the notes written. It shortens the last mile, not the journey. See Tally accounting services.
What changes for an LLP, a partnership firm or a proprietorship
Schedule III is a Companies Act requirement. It does not apply to an LLP, a firm or a proprietorship - which is not the same as saying those entities do not need financial statements.
LLPs
File a Statement of Account and Solvency in Form 8 each year, plus an annual return in Form 11. Accounts must be audited where turnover exceeds Rs 40 lakh or partner contribution exceeds Rs 25 lakh. Below those thresholds the accounts still have to exist and be signed by the designated partners. Form 8 has its own structure, and it must agree with the books. See LLP registration and compliance.
Partnership firms
No prescribed format, but the statements carry a burden nothing else does - partner capital and current accounts. Interest on capital and remuneration must be computed within the limits allowed by the deed and by Section 40(b) of the Income-tax Act before the accounts can be signed. Getting this wrong is expensive at assessment.
Proprietorships
The same assessee as the individual, so the discipline is separating the two. Statements are still needed for the income tax return and almost always for a bank - every working capital renewal asks for a balance sheet and a profit and loss account, and a lender reading those against your GST returns will notice the differences.
The finalisation work below is broadly the same whatever the entity. What changes is the format and what gets filed.
How we finalise a set of accounts
It runs in sequence, because most of these steps depend on the one before.
| Step | Stage | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Trial balance extraction and scrutiny | We read the trial balance before touching anything - negative balances where none should exist, impossible cash balances, suspense accounts, round-sum entries, balances that have not moved all year. |
| 02 | Ledger scrutiny | Every material ledger read line by line. Not a totals check: misclassifications, personal expenses in business expenditure, the same vendor under three spellings, a payment in repairs that should have been a fixed asset. |
| 03 | Bank reconciliation | Every bank, cash credit and overdraft account reconciled to the closing statement. Unpresented cheques listed and aged, stale entries written back or explained. A year-end reconciliation with an unexplained difference is a finding waiting to happen. |
| 04 | Debtors, creditors, ageing and confirmations | Party-wise balances aged, confirmations sought from material parties, differences reconciled - discount not booked, credit notes unrecorded, customer TDS showing as an apparent shortfall. Long-outstanding receivables assessed for provision or write-off. Carrying a four-year-old debtor at full value is a misstatement, not optimism. |
| 05 | Inventory valuation and physical verification | Closing stock valued at the lower of cost and net realisable value, consistently applied. Physical verification carried out, or your count sheets reconciled to book stock with differences explained. Inventory is where the largest misstatements live - the only material figure not evidenced by a bank statement or a third party. |
| 06 | Fixed asset register and depreciation | A proper register - asset, date put to use, cost, additions, deletions, accumulated depreciation, written-down value. Then two depreciation computations, not one. Under Schedule II of the Companies Act, 2013 depreciation runs over the useful life of the asset; under Section 32 of the Income-tax Act at prescribed rates on the written-down value of a block. They give different numbers, they are meant to, and the gap is a timing difference that flows into deferred tax. |
| 07 | Prepaid expenses, outstanding liabilities and provisions | Insurance, AMC, rent and subscriptions apportioned to the right year. Expenses incurred but not billed brought in - audit fee, professional charges, the last month's utilities and salaries. Gratuity and leave encashment provided where they apply. |
| 08 | Related party transactions | Parties identified - directors, their relatives, group entities, entities where a director has significant influence. Transactions extracted, tested against Section 188 where applicable, disclosed under AS 18. Undisclosed related party transactions are the most common qualification we see on small company audits. |
| 09 | GST and TDS reconciliation | Turnover per books reconciled to GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B; input credit per books to GSTR-2B. TDS reconciled to Form 26AS and the AIS, both tax you deducted and tax deducted from you. If your books and your filed returns disagree at year end it will be found; the only question is whether you find it or a proper officer does. |
| 10 | Deferred tax and prior period items | Timing differences computed and the deferred tax asset or liability recognised - depreciation being the largest, alongside Section 43B disallowances, provisions and carried-forward losses where recognition is prudent. Prior period items disclosed separately, not buried in current-year expenses. |
| 11 | Regrouping into Schedule III | Ledger balances mapped to Schedule III line items - non-current versus current, secured versus unsecured, and the sub-classifications the format demands. Prior-year figures regrouped to match. Done properly at the chart-of-accounts stage this is short work. On a chart of accounts that grew organically for eight years, it is not. |
| 12 | Notes, disclosures and the draft to management | The full note set drafted, with the accounting policies written to describe what the company actually does. Draft statements reach you with a schedule of every material adjustment and the reason for it. You are not asked to sign something you have not seen explained. |
| 13 | Handover to the auditor | A finalised set with the schedules behind every line - asset register, ageing, reconciliations, confirmations, deferred tax working, GST and TDS reconciliations. An auditor who receives this can plan and complete the audit. One who receives a trial balance and a folder of bills takes three times as long. |
Seven things we find wrong almost every year
Not a scare list. This is what the first week of a finalisation engagement usually turns up.
The books do not tie to the filed GST returns
Turnover per the P&L and per GSTR-1 differ, and nobody reconciled them during the year.
TDS in the books does not match Form 26AS
Customers deducted at a different rate, against a different PAN, or in a different quarter. Credit claimed that is not in 26AS gets adjusted, and the intimation arrives months later.
Bank balances have not been reconciled in months
The gap has been carried forward long enough that nobody remembers where it started.
Stock was never physically verified
The closing figure is a book figure - usually the largest number on the balance sheet after fixed assets.
Capital expenditure sits in revenue
Equipment and improvements charged to repairs: overstates the expense, understates the asset, hands the assessing officer an easy disallowance.
Related party transactions are undisclosed
Rent to a director's spouse, purchases from a group entity, a director's loan sitting in unsecured loans without a word in the notes.
Depreciation is computed on one basis only
Usually the income-tax basis, with the Companies Act working never done and deferred tax never recognised.
None of these are unusual. All are cheaper to fix in June than to explain in a scrutiny notice two years later.
How long accounts finalisation takes
Honest ranges, from the date we have the data.
| Situation | Realistic timeline |
|---|---|
| Company on our monthly retainer, books reconciled through the year | 7 to 10 working days |
| Company with clean in-house books, reconciled monthly | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Company with in-house books, reconciliations behind but records complete | 3 to 5 weeks |
| LLP or firm, moderate volume, records complete | 2 to 3 weeks |
| Books materially behind, or a year with no reconciliation at all | Quoted after review - 6 weeks and up |
Three things drive this, and none is our capacity: the state of the books; whether stock was physically verified at year end, because nobody can create that evidence retrospectively; and how fast party confirmations come back, which depends on your customers and suppliers.
So start in April or May, not September. A company finalising in the fortnight before the AOC-4 deadline has removed every option except signing what is in front of it.
What the law actually requires
Books of account - Section 128
Every company must keep proper books on the accrual basis and the double-entry system at its registered office, and retain them for the period prescribed under Section 128(5). Where books are electronic, the Companies (Accounts) Rules require an audit trail with the edit log enabled - and it must stay on. Under Section 128(6) the managing director, whole-time director in charge of finance, CFO or other person charged with compliance faces a fine of not less than Rs 50,000 and up to Rs 5,00,000, on the individual rather than the company.
Format - Section 129 and Schedule III
Financial statements must give a true and fair view and comply with the accounting standards and the form set out in Schedule III.
Filing - Section 137, AOC-4
Statements adopted at the AGM must reach the Registrar within 30 days. Late filing costs the company Rs 10,000 plus Rs 100 for every day the failure continues, capped at Rs 2,00,000, and every officer in default Rs 10,000 plus Rs 100 per day, capped at Rs 50,000. MCA's additional filing fee is charged separately, on top. MGT-7 under Section 92(5) carries the same structure.
The daily accrual means a filing six months late has already reached the company cap - and the officer liability is personal, sitting with the director rather than with whoever kept the books. See annual ROC filing for the full calendar.
Sources: Ministry of Corporate Affairs - Companies Act, 2013 · Income Tax Department - Income-tax Rules, 1962.
Who needs financial statement preparation
- Private limited companies. Statutory obligation - Schedule III statements, board approval, audit, then AOC-4. See private limited company compliance.
- LLPs. Form 8 every year, and audit above the turnover or contribution thresholds.
- Partnership firms and proprietorships. Statements for the income tax return, for partner capital accounts, and for the bank.
- Businesses whose books are kept in-house. Your accountant posts the entries; a CA closes the year and produces statements that will survive the audit. Our most common finalisation engagement. If you want the day-to-day covered too, see virtual accountant.
- Businesses changing auditors. A new auditor examines opening balances and comparatives properly, and weaknesses tolerated for years surface in the first engagement.
- Businesses raising funding or a bank facility. Investor diligence and a credit team read the notes, not the headline - related party transactions, ageing and inventory policy get read carefully.
- Businesses in a group. Subsidiary accounts must be prepared on consistent policies and the same reporting date.
If your books are already with us on a monthly accounting retainer, year-end financial statements are part of that scope.
What this costs
Quoted per engagement. We do not publish a headline price, because the three things that determine the work - entity type, transaction volume and the state of the books - vary more between two similar-looking companies than most people expect. A company with 400 monthly entries and monthly reconciliations is a different job from one with 400 monthly entries and no reconciliation since April.
On a monthly accounting retainer
Year-end financial statements in Schedule III format are included. No separate finalisation bill. Tiers are listed on the monthly accounting page.
Standalone finalisation
Books kept by you or another accountant, closed by us - quoted after we review the trial balance and ledgers. For order of magnitude, statutory audit support sits in a Rs 14,999 to Rs 39,999 band on our published add-on list, and finalisation is scoped the same way.
Catch-up finalisation
Where a year or more was never properly closed, quoted only after we have seen the records. We will not quote that blind, and anyone who does is guessing or planning to revise.
Send the trial balance and the ledger listing. You get a written scope and a fixed fee. All fees are exclusive of GST.
Request a quoteWhy businesses bring their year-end to Regikart
We prepare; we do not audit the same accounts
Section 144 independence is respected as a matter of course, and we say which side of the line we are on before the engagement starts.
Work is reviewed before it leaves
A chartered accountant reviews the finalisation and the notes before the draft reaches you. Our accounting practice is led by Deepak Jaiswal, FCA.
Every adjustment is explained
Draft statements come with a schedule of proposed adjustments and the reason for each.
One team for books, statements and ROC
When the same firm keeps the books, finalises them and files the AOC-4, the filed numbers came from the ledgers rather than being typed in again.
You keep your data and your licence
We work inside your own TallyPrime company or Zoho Books organisation. If you leave, you leave with everything.
Four offices, delivery across India
Kolkata, Delhi, Gurugram and Pune. Most of this work is remote, which is why location matters less than the review layer behind it.
Financial statement questions, answered
Questions, answered.
If you don't see your question here, write to us - a senior partner usually replies within a couple of business hours.
Still have questions?
Book a free 20-minute consult with a senior partner - we'll walk through your case and outline next steps.
Talk to a partner →What pairs well with accounts finalisation
Monthly accounting
Books kept reconciled through the year, which is what makes finalisation short.
MIS reporting
The monthly management side, built from the same ledgers as the year-end accounts.
Annual ROC filing
AOC-4 and MGT-7 once the statements are adopted, with the full compliance calendar.
Virtual accounting
A named finance team for the day-to-day, with year-end included in scope.
Start the year-end in April, not in the fortnight before the deadline.
If your books are current, finalisation is short and predictable. If they are behind - more common than not - it is fixable, in a way that gets harder every month you wait. Send the trial balance and we will tell you what finalisation will actually involve.
Reviewed by CA & CS Team · Regikart · Last updated 7 September 2026