Preparation of financial statements by 31 March
31 March 2023 is the statutory deadline for the preparation of financial statements for companies ending their financial year on 31 December 2022. The financial services in companies are required to prepare the annual report by this date, and the boards of directors and preparers are required to sign them. It is worth noting that the preliminary reports prepared in this way may be subject to further changes, if warranted.
After all, the final date for approval of the reports is not until 30 June 2023. In the three-month period between the preparation and approval of the report, the report may be subject to changes, provided that the information received by the company during this period has a significant impact on the content and figures presented therein.
In recent years, the deadlines for the preparation and submission of financial statements have been postponed due to pandemonium, but the Ministry of Finance has now decided not to make such a move. There are specific arguments behind this.
- For companies that do not prepare monthly financial information for the board of directors, 31 March is the first time that the data on the company’s books is formally acknowledged by its board of directors. This is important, among other things, for assessing the management board’s knowledge of, for example, the company’s compliance with the capital requirements under the Commercial Companies Code, its solvency under the Insolvency Law or its compliance with the financial covenants set out in the loan agreements.
- The postponement in recent years of the preparation, approval and publication of financial statements meant that key information describing the financial condition of companies was not available to the public until the fourth quarter of the year following the balance sheet date.
- The report prepared at the end of March can be updated before it is approved.