No — you do not need a set of formally filed accounts in front of you to apply. We assess affordability mainly from your company's live banking activity, connected by Open Banking, rather than from a historical year-end account.
Why accounts are not the gatekeeper
Filed accounts describe a company at a past year-end and can be many months old by the time they appear at Companies House. For short-term working-capital lending, what matters far more is the current shape of the money — income, outgoings and how steady the pattern is right now. That is exactly what an Open Banking feed shows, which is why we lean on it. See how we decide whether to lend.
We do not need your accounts in hand, but we do check that your company's filings at Companies House are up to date, because an overdue filing is a risk signal. See whether your Companies House filing status matters.
When accounts can still help
If your recent trading looks unusual for a good reason — a one-off large payment, a seasonal dip — a management account or a note explaining it can add helpful context. We would ask for anything like that during the application, as covered in what documents we might ask you to provide.
To see the full readiness picture, read what documents you need to apply, then apply.
We lend only to UK limited companies and LLPs, the loan is to the company with no director personal guarantee, and this is business finance outside the consumer-credit regime — as an exempt lender under Article 60B of the Regulated Activities Order we sit outside FCA consumer-credit regulation, so the Financial Ombudsman Service and FSCS do not apply.
See also: Whether your Companies House filing status matters, What documents you need to apply?, How we decide whether to lend?.