Senior Accounting Officer | SAO Certificate | Responsibilities - BDO

The Senior Accounting Officer (SAO) regime requires SAOs of qualifying companies to establish and maintain appropriate tax accounting arrangements. It sets the benchmark by which the tax accounting arrangements of large UK companies are assessed.

The legislation was introduced to increase levels of personal accountability for tax governance, and the regime has changed the way that tax is managed. HMRC’s expectations of what acceptable governance looks like continues to evolve, and what was considered acceptable when the legislation was first introduced is certainly not what is expected now.

If your business falls under the SAO legislation, you cannot afford to take an ad-hoc approach to managing your tax compliance. You need appropriate governance, and documented processes and controls that are continuously reviewed.

If you are the SAO for your firm, you are personally liable for any failure to meet your duties. You can be fined personally, as well as incurring fines for your business.

SAO compliance assurance: helping you sleep at night

We have worked with over 250 businesses and SAOs, from growing UK companies to the FTSE 100 and 250 and multinational corporates. You can rely on us to advise and support you and your company on all aspects of Senior Accounting Officer compliance.

Our unique assurance and testing methodology has been accepted by HMRC, so you can be confident in your position.

SAO Healthcheck

If you manage your SAO compliance in-house, you can use our SAO Healthcheck to benchmark the appropriateness of your SAO framework and the underlying documentation in place to support your SAO filing position.

We work with your team to assess how your SAO work is conducted and produce a detailed report for you. We will benchmark your approach against HMRC guidance and provide areas where you need to take action to avoid inaccuracies or penalties.

If you want assurance that your approach is robust, our SAO Healthcheck can give you confidence that your business is not at risk of non-compliance.

Request a healthcheck now

Full SAO Compliance

You can outsource your SAO requirements to our team, with an HMRC-approved method that provides a robust approach to tax governance and evidence of your SAO compliance. Our Tax Risk Assurance Matrix Methodology (TRAM) provides immediate assurance to your stakeholders over your SAO processes for all taxes.

This holistic service includes a full report and a formal opinion on the appropriateness of your tax accounting processes. We also support you with the wording of your notification and certificate in advance of submission.

SAO Framework

Where you have sufficient in house resource to establish an internal SAO Framework and are looking to enhance your internal SAO controls, we can assist you in the development of your SAO

framework – from initial briefings with key stakeholders, to helping you establish appropriate reporting structures and formalised documentation (including SAO Policy).

Whether you need assurance of your existing processes or would like to understand how we can fully manage your SAO compliance, please get in touch to discuss how we can support your business.

speak to the team