Year-end Letters

Overview

When a company's accounts and CT600 are finished in IRIS, three documents go to the client:

• the email that goes with the documents
• the Letter of Representation, for a director to sign
• the corporation tax payment details page

Year-end letters drafts all three from the IRIS files. Fortium reads the liability, the period, the UTR, the page range and whether dividends were paid, then fills in JLA's own wording. You check every figure before anything is saved, and nothing is sent to the client unless you send it.

Where to start

There are three ways in:

• Year-end letters in the sidebar lists the companies still waiting for their letters. These are companies with an accounts or corporation tax process for a year that has ended still open, and no letters saved for that year. Saving the letters takes a company off the list.
• Year-end letters at the top of a company's accounts or corporation tax process opens the letters for that process's period. When you save, the save is noted on the process.
• ⋯ → Year-end letters on any company client.

Add the files

1. 1Drop everything IRIS produced onto the drop area: the CT600, the full accounts and the tax computation, or the zip they came in. Fortium works out which file is which from what it says, not its name.
2. 2If the files are already in Fortium, tick them under Already in Fortium and click Read the ticked files instead.
3. 3Or add the CT600 and the full accounts one at a time in the slots below, then click Read the files.

The CT600 and the full accounts are required. Fortium refuses two CT600s or two sets of accounts unless they are the two returns for a period longer than 12 months, so it never has to choose between them.

Check the details

The panel on the right lists every detail the letters use. Each one shows where it came from: CT600, Accounts, Tax computation, Client record, Companies House, Rule (worked out, such as a deadline) or Typed. Hover a tag for the exact box or page. A tag with a page number opens the file at that page.

Anything Fortium couldn't read is left blank, and the drafts wait until it's filled in. The amber box at the top lists what needs a look, for example:

• the CT600 and the computation disagree about the liability, or tax has already been paid (you choose which figure the letters use)
• the company has associated companies, so the "not subject to associated companies rules" sentence needs changing
• the payment date falls on a weekend or bank holiday
• a deadline has already passed
• the CT600 is for a different company, UTR or company number from the client

You'll usually need to type:

• the two payment reference digits, from HMRC's notice to file or the online account. Fortium suggests last year's plus one when it has last year's letters, but you confirm them.
• the Companies House deadline, only when Fortium can't work it out. If Companies House already has this period's accounts, Fortium fills in the statutory deadline itself and says so. If Companies House is expecting a different period, use the suggestion button to fill in the usual date.

Tick the liability and the payment reference as checked before you copy, download, save or send.

Use the drafts

The tabs on the left show the Email, the Letter of Rep, the Payment details page and the upload Checklist. They update as you change the details.

• Copy email copies the text with its formatting, ready to paste into Docusoft or Outlook. The subject has its own copy button.
• Download gives either document as PDF or Word, or everything as one zip.
• Save PDFs to client documents files the Letter of Rep, and the payment page when there's tax to pay, in the client's Tax documents as private drafts.
• Send Letter of Rep for signature sends the saved Letter of Rep to a contact through Fortium's signing requests.
• Email from Fortium opens a new email with the text, the client's primary contact and the PDFs attached. It's sent from your own connected mailbox, so it appears in your Sent items and the reply comes back to you. Nothing is sent until you press Send.

If something was read wrong, correct it on the right as usual, and tick it under Something read wrong? before you save. That tells us which readers need work: Reader health on the Year-end letters list shows, for each detail, how often it was read and kept, corrected or missed.

After you save

The panel that appears after a save offers the next steps. Each happens only when you click it:

• Mark the stage complete, when you started from a process.
• Open the process, with a note when its corporation tax deadline differs from the one in the letters.
• Share payment page to the client portal, when there's tax to pay.
• Remind the client to pay: one email a set number of days before the payment date, at 9am. Send me a test sends it to you first, and Cancel it removes it.
• Next company, when you're working through a list.

Settings

Settings → Year-end letters holds what's the same for every company. It's for staff who manage the firm's settings:

• The client email: the Subject line, and whether to Sign the email off with your name, job title and phone. Leave the sign-off off if Docusoft adds its own signature.
• Letter of Representation: who the letter is Addressed to.
• HMRC's corporation tax account: the sort code, account name and account number on the payment page.
• The CT600 and Companies House late-filing fines quoted in the email.
• Wording: the firm's own wording for the email, the Letter of Rep and the payment page, with a live preview. Every save is kept, so an earlier version can be loaded back, and Reset to Fortium's wording goes back to the original.

What's Next?

• Client Documents — where the saved PDFs are filed
• Client Signing Requests — track the Letter of Rep once it's sent for signature