What does a care home lender mean by current accounts?
It means figures that show how the home is trading now. A bank reviewing a loan, an overdraft or an invoice finance line wants a current profit and loss account and balance sheet, usually to the last completed month end, so it can see occupancy, fee income, staffing cost and cash as they stand today. The phrase "current accounts" throws owners because it sounds like the accounts sitting in a drawer, but a lender almost never means the statutory accounts you filed at Companies House. It means management accounts.
Management accounts are an internal set of figures with no fixed legal format and no filing requirement. That freedom is the point: the bank can ask for the home's position to a date that suits its decision, and you prepare to that date. Before you send anything, read the request for the reporting date and whether it wants the operating company, a property company, or the whole group, because a care home is often run across more than one entity and sending the wrong one wastes a week. LOYALS is a King's Cross firm of accountants and business consultants that prepares these packs for care homes across London, and the first thing we check on any request is which entity and which date the bank actually means. If you want to see how the recurring side fits together, our guide to care home accounting sets out the monthly work a lender pack draws on.
Why your last filed accounts are not what the bank wants
A private limited company can file its annual accounts up to nine months after the financial year end, and a brand new company gets 21 months for its first set. So by the time a lender asks, your filed accounts describe a year that ended many months ago, and at the trading edge the numbers can be well over a year out of date. For a care home that is the difference between the occupancy you ran last spring and the occupancy you are running this month, which is exactly what the bank is trying to read.
Statutory accounts are built for Companies House and HMRC, not for a lending decision. They include a balance sheet, a profit and loss account and notes, often in abbreviated form, with no occupancy detail, no fee income split by funder and no live cash position. That is why a lender wants a current management pack instead, built on the same underlying records but cut to a recent date and to the questions a lender actually asks. Our management accounts service exists for exactly this, keeping a care home's numbers current month to month so a lender request is a day's work rather than a scramble.
What goes in a care home lender pack
A good pack answers the lender's questions before it asks them. For a care home that means the core financial statements plus the operational numbers a bank uses to judge a home, assembled to the reporting date and kept short. Here is the checklist we work to.
- Profit and loss to the reporting date. Month by month for the current year, so the bank sees the trend, not just a single figure.
- Balance sheet at the reporting date. What the home owns, owes and is owed on that day, including any director loans and finance balances.
- Occupancy and fee income. Average occupancy and weekly fees, split between local authority, NHS and self funders, because the mix drives how safe the income looks.
- Aged debtors. What councils, the NHS and families owe, by age, so the bank can see how quickly fee income actually turns into cash.
- Cash position and a short forecast. Bank balances now, and a brief cash forecast if the facility depends on it.
- A one page reconciliation to the filed accounts. A short bridge from the last statutory figures to the current position, so the bank can trust the jump.
You do not have to invent any of this. The raw material is the records every company must keep anyway, held for six years: all money received and spent, debts owed and owed to you, and the supporting invoices, bank statements and contracts. If the bookkeeping is up to date, the pack is an assembly job. If it is behind, the catch up comes first, which is the single most common reason a lender pack slips past its deadline.
What reporting date should you give the bank?
Ask the bank for it. The reporting date, the "as at" date, is the single most useful thing to pin down, because preparing to the wrong point means doing the work twice. Most lenders want figures to the last completed month end, or at worst the last completed quarter. If the request does not name a date, a one line email asking "to what date would you like the figures" saves far more time than it costs.
Our position is simple: prepare to the most recent month end the bookkeeping can support cleanly, confirm that date with the bank first, and never send figures to an old year end just because they are already done. The one case where that changes is a facility agreement that fixes a specific reporting date in its covenants, a quarter end tied to a covenant test, say. There you prepare to the date the agreement names, not the most recent one, because the bank is checking a condition, not forming a first impression.
Who prepares, approves and signs the figures?
Three roles sit behind a clean lender pack, and confusing them is where packs go wrong. Your accountant prepares the figures and reconciles them to the last filed accounts. A director approves and signs them, confirming the occupancy, fee rates and any adjustments, because the numbers are the company's, not the accountant's. The bank sets the reporting date and reviews the pack against its covenants. Management accounts carry no auditor and no statutory signature, so the director approval is what gives the bank its comfort that the figures are owned rather than estimated.
Does the bank need audited accounts?
Usually not. Most care homes are small companies and are exempt from audit, and a lender reviewing a facility normally accepts management figures approved by a director. For financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, a company is small, and so audit exempt, if it meets two of three tests: turnover no more than 15 million pounds, assets no more than 7.5 million pounds, and 50 or fewer employees on average. Those thresholds rose on 6 April 2025 from the old 10.2 million and 5.1 million limits, which pulled more care home groups below the audit line than were below it a year ago.
Audit, or an independent accountant review, only comes in when the facility agreement specifically requires it, and that is worth checking in the request before you commission anything, because a review is a separate engagement with its own cost and timetable. If the bank has asked for audited figures and your group is audit exempt, the right move is to ask the bank whether an accountant review, which is lighter and quicker, would meet the requirement, rather than paying for a full audit it may not actually need.
What this means for you: what to do when the request lands
The practical path through a lender request is short.
- Confirm the reporting date and the entity. One email to the bank settles both, and settles whether it wants the operating company, the property company or the group.
- Check your bookkeeping is current to that date. If it is, the pack is an assembly job. If not, the catch up is the first task and the real deadline.
- Assemble the core pack. Profit and loss, balance sheet, occupancy and fee income, aged debtors, cash, and a one page reconciliation to the filed accounts.
- Get a director to approve and sign. The signature and the cover note are what make it a lender pack rather than a spreadsheet.
- Check the audit wording. Only commission a review or audit if the facility agreement actually requires it.
Done in that order, a care home lender request is a manageable piece of work rather than a fire drill, and the bank gets a pack that reads as current, owned and reconciled. LOYALS is a King's Cross firm of accountants and business consultants that prepares management accounts and lender packs for care homes and care groups across London, and keeps the numbers current month to month so the next bank request is a day's work, not a scramble.
If you run a care home or a group and want the monthly numbers kept lender ready all year, our care home accountants handle the bookkeeping, management accounts, payroll and funder invoicing that a lender pack is built from, so the figures are always one step from ready.