Zoho Books to CT600: How to File Your Company Tax Return

If you use Zoho Books to manage your company's accounting, you can export your financial data and use it to file your company tax return with HMRC. This guide explains how to get the data out of Zoho Books, import it into CT600 filing software, and complete your submission efficiently.

What You Will Need Before You Start

Before exporting from Zoho Books, make sure your accounts are fully up to date for the period:

• All sales invoices are recorded and marked correctly
• All expenses and purchases are entered and categorised
• Your bank accounts are reconciled
• Payroll journals have been posted for the full year (if applicable)
• Year-end adjustments have been made — depreciation, accruals, prepayments

Rushing this step is the most common cause of errors in the final CT600. Clean books before export saves significant time later.

Step 1: Export Your Trial Balance from Zoho Books

The trial balance is the core document you need for your company tax return (CT600). It summarises all your account balances at your year end date.

To export from Zoho Books:

1. Navigate to Reports
2. Look for Trial Balance — it may be under Financial Reports in the left-hand menu
3. Select your date range — use the start and end of your accounting period
4. Click the More icon in the top right corner
5. Select Export
6. Choose CSV or Excel format

> Note: If Trial Balance is not available in your Zoho plan, export the General Ledger report instead. This contains the same information in a more detailed, transaction-level format.

Setting the Correct Date Range

Use your accounting period start and end dates — not the calendar year and not today's date. Your accounting period end date is shown on your Companies House records and your previous CT600 filings.

For most UK limited companies, the accounting period runs for exactly 12 months and ends on the same date each year. Getting this date range wrong is one of the most common mistakes: if you use the wrong dates, your trial balance will include the wrong transactions and your CT600 figures will be incorrect.

Zoho Plan Differences

Zoho Books offers several subscription tiers, and the available reports differ between plans. If the Trial Balance report is not visible in your Reports menu, your plan may not include it. In this case, export the General Ledger instead — your CT600 filing software can process this format as well.

Step 2: Import Into Your CT600 Filing Software

Zoho Books is an accounting platform — it does not file the CT600 directly to HMRC. You export your data from Zoho and import it into a separate CT600 filing service, which then submits to HMRC on your behalf.

Once you have the CSV or Excel file from Zoho Books, upload it into your CT600 software. The import tool reads your Zoho account names and maps them to the correct profit and loss and balance sheet categories.

The import handles:

• Profit and loss — turnover, cost of sales, wages, rent, other overheads, interest payable
• Balance sheet — fixed assets, debtors, cash, creditors, loans, share capital, retained profit

After importing, review every mapped value before proceeding. Zoho Books uses its own account naming convention, and some categories may need to be adjusted manually.

Zoho Books Account Mapping for CT600

Zoho Books organises accounts into standard categories. Here is how they typically map to the CT600 tax computation:

Zoho Books category	CT600 area
Income accounts	Trading income (turnover)
Cost of Goods Sold	Cost of sales
Operating Expenses	Administrative / overhead expenses
Depreciation	Added back — replaced by capital allowances
Salary / Payroll expenses	Deductible employment costs
Interest paid	Loan relationship debits
Fixed Assets	Balance sheet
Accounts Receivable	Debtors — balance sheet
Accounts Payable	Creditors — balance sheet
Bank accounts	Cash — balance sheet

Key Areas to Review After Import

Directors' salaries vs dividends: In Zoho Books, director pay may be split between salary (payroll) and dividends. Salary is a deductible business expense and reduces your taxable profit. Dividends are a distribution of profit — they are not deductible and should not appear in the profit and loss section of your trial balance.

Depreciation: Your accounts will show a depreciation charge for the year. This is added back in the tax computation and replaced by HMRC's capital allowances system. The filing software handles this automatically once the depreciation account is identified. Do not remove the depreciation entry — it needs to be present so it can be added back correctly.

Directors' loan account: If a director has borrowed money from the company (or lent money to it), there will be a directors' loan account on the balance sheet. This is not income or expense — make sure it is mapped to a balance sheet category, not a P&L category.

VAT liability: If your company is VAT-registered, there may be a VAT balance on the balance sheet at year end. This is a balance sheet item — it does not affect your taxable profit.

Retained earnings: Zoho Books carries forward the accumulated retained profit from all previous years as a credit balance in the equity section. This is the total profit since the company was incorporated, minus any dividends paid. It is not the current year profit — the current year result appears as a separate line.

Step 3: Review the Tax Computation

After the trial balance is imported, your CT600 software generates a tax computation. This shows:

• Accounting profit (from the P&L)
• Adjustments — depreciation added back, capital allowances deducted
• Taxable profit
• Corporation tax payable

Review the computation to make sure the profit figure looks right. If it is significantly higher or lower than you expected, check whether:

• All income has been included
• All allowable expenses have been deducted
• Depreciation has been correctly identified and added back
• Capital allowances have been applied for any asset purchases during the year

For a detailed explanation of how the corporation tax calculation works, read our guide to corporation tax losses and reliefs.

Step 4: Attach iXBRL Accounts

HMRC requires your company accounts to be submitted in iXBRL format alongside the CT600. iXBRL is an electronic format that tags every line of your accounts with structured data so HMRC can process it automatically.

Most CT600 filing software generates the iXBRL accounts automatically from your imported trial balance data. You do not need to create these manually or have any knowledge of the iXBRL format.

If you are filing for a micro-entity — a very small company — your accounts can be prepared in an abbreviated format. See our micro-entity accounts guide for the current thresholds and what you need to include.

Step 5: Submit to HMRC

Once the CT600 and iXBRL accounts are ready, you can submit to HMRC directly from your filing software. The process:

1. Review the completed CT600 form and check all figures
2. Confirm the tax calculation and payment amount
3. Submit — HMRC responds within minutes with an acceptance or rejection

If HMRC rejects the filing, the error message will indicate what needs to be corrected. Common rejection causes include a mismatched company name, incorrect UTR number, or a discrepancy between the CT600 figures and the attached accounts.

Common Questions About Zoho Books and CT600

Does Zoho Books file the CT600 directly?

No. Zoho Books is an accounting platform, not a CT600 filing tool. You export your data from Zoho and import it into separate CT600 filing software, which submits to HMRC.

Can Zoho Books generate iXBRL accounts?

Zoho Books does not generate iXBRL accounts. This is done by your CT600 filing software, which creates the iXBRL format automatically from the imported trial balance.

What if my trial balance does not show all my accounts?

Some CT600 plans in Zoho hide accounts with zero balances by default. Look for a Show Zero Balances option in the report settings. Alternatively, export the full General Ledger to ensure all accounts are included.

My trial balance is not balancing — what should I do?

If total debits do not equal total credits in your exported file, there is an underlying bookkeeping issue in Zoho Books. This must be corrected before you proceed. Do not attempt to file a CT600 based on an out-of-balance trial balance.

After You Have Filed

Once HMRC accepts your CT600, you will receive a submission reference number. Your corporation tax payment is due nine months and one day after your accounting period end — this is separate from the filing deadline.

For a complete overview of the company tax return process from start to finish, including what documents you need and when to file, see our company tax return checklist.

Other Accounting Software Guides

If you or your clients use other platforms, the same import process applies with minor variations:

• Export Trial Balance from QuickBooks
• Xero Account Mapping for CT600
• Export Data from FreeAgent for CT600

Summary

To file your CT600 using Zoho Books: export the trial balance (or General Ledger) as CSV or Excel from Zoho Reports, import it into CT600 filing software, review the account mapping, and submit to HMRC. The critical steps are ensuring your accounts are complete before export, using the correct accounting period date range, and checking the mapping for depreciation, directors' remuneration, and balance sheet accounts before you submit.