Filing your accounts is ridiculously complicated – you think you’re finished when another 50 forms appear from nowhere and suddenly you’ve submitted late.

That’s why at AIMS we focus on making them as simple as possible.

But sometimes the reasons for late accounts aren’t quite so mundane. Sometimes they get a little bit silly – as Companies House has shown in their latest list of the most bizarre excuses for late accounts. The excuses range from the incredibly unlucky to the straight up ridiculous. Natural disasters feature – one accountant was apparently stopped in their tracks by a volcano. Variations on “the dog ate my homework” are also used – both slugs and goats were blamed for eating businesses’ accounts. There’s even a tale of extra-marital trysts – one business owner blamed their late accounts on finding their wife in the bath with their accountant!

Our favourite excuse, though, is a literal interpretation of being a “victim of your own success”. One business claimed that the reason they weren’t able to file on time was that the business had been so unexpectedly successful that they had no time to file their accounts!

Whether fact or fiction, these excuses provide an important lesson to make sure that you have your accounts prepared well ahead of time – you never know what might happen! If you want to make sure your accounts are in order, just contact your local AIMS Accountant.