Case Study · Year-End Accounts & CRO Filing

Clearing a Two-Year Year-End Accounts Backlog

How a Dublin Accounting Firm Cleared a Two-Year Year-End Backlog and Rebuilt Client Trust with Aone Outsourcing Solutions.

Year-end accounts running 8–10 months behind schedule → All accounts filed within statutory deadlines

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40+

Overdue files cleared

CRO late-filing penalties

Months to fully clear

~50%

Less prep time per client

Firm

Accounting practice

Location

Dublin, Ireland

Clients

180+ SME & Sole traders

Service

Year-end accounts & CRO filing

The Firm Overview

Well-established. Under-resourced.

A well-established but under-resourced accounting practice in Dublin that is serving small and medium-sized businesses across retail, hospitality, and professional services. Year-end accounts preparation and CRO filing are the major parts of their annual workload, alongside tax compliance and bookkeeping support.

The firm had a very small team that worked on this entire project and was always pushed for time, with several deadlines competing for attention. Turnaround was coming slowly, and stress levels were beginning to take their toll. So the director went to Aone Outsourcing Solutions, not to catch up on the backlog but to establish a process that would keep the firm from being backlogged again.

The Challenges Faced by Accounting Firms

Year-end accounts for over 40 clients were running 810 months behind their financial year-end.

Several clients faced CRO late filing penalties and risked losing audit exemption status as a result.

The firm's two qualified accountants were spread across bookkeeping, tax, and year-end work with no clear prioritisation.

Client files were inconsistent, some maintained on Sage, others on spreadsheets, with no standard working paper format.

Client relationships were under strain, with several considering moving to other firms due to slow turnaround.

How Aone Got to the Root of It

What Aone's file-by-file audit found

Before proposing a solution, Aone conducted a file-by-file review of the backlog to understand what was causing the delays. Three issues stood out:

No prioritisation system

The newest requests were often worked on before older, more overdue ones.

No standard working paper format

Every file had to be understood from scratch before work could begin.

Reactive, not scheduled work

Accounts were prepared only when a client chased, not on a fixed internal calendar.

How Aone Worked on the Solution?

Rather than simply adding capacity to the existing process, Aone rebuilt the year-end workflow from the ground up:

Backlog triage: Every overdue file was ranked by financial year-end date, CRO filing deadline, and penalty risk, so the most urgent cases were tackled first.

Standardised working papers: A single working paper and file-review template was introduced across all clients, regardless of the accounting software they used.

Dedicated year-end team: A fixed Aone team was assigned to work through the backlog in structured batches, rather than picking up files ad hoc.

CRO filing management: Aone handled CRO submissions directly, including liaising on penalty appeals for the most overdue cases.

Ongoing filing calendar: Once the backlog was cleared, a rolling 12-month calendar was introduced, scheduling each client's accounts well ahead of their statutory deadline.

Client communication support: Aone prepared client-ready summaries alongside statutory accounts, helping the practice rebuild confidence with clients who had grown frustrated with delays.

The Data

Before and After, by the Numbers

Metric	Before	After
Average accounts delay	8-10 months	On Schedule
Clients with CRO late filing penalties	12	0
Clients at risk of losing audit exemption	6	0
Backlog size	40+	0
Standardised working paper format	No	Yes
Time to prepare accounts (avg per client)	15–20 hrs	8–10 hrs

Timeline

How Long It Took to Change the Scenario

Month 1

File audit completed, backlog triaged and ranked by urgency.

Month 2–3

Oldest and highest-risk files cleared first, in structured weekly batches.

Month 4

Remaining backlog cleared, all clients brought current.

Month 5 Onward

Rolling filing calendar in place, no client working within 60 days of deadline.

"We knew we had a backlog problem, but we didn't realise how much of our time it was quietly costing us until it was gone. Now we're having actual conversations with clients about their business, not just apologising for being late."

Practice Director

Is Your Year-End Backlog Quietly Growing?

If accounts are slipping further behind every year, the fix usually isn't more hours, it's a better process.

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