Our partnership agreement is out of date. Can you still prepare accounts?

Yes, and it is a common position. We allocate on the basis the partners are actually operating and record clearly in the accounts what basis was used. That record is worth having if the allocation is ever disputed, but the agreement itself is a job for a solicitor.

Do partnership accounts have to be filed anywhere?

The accounts themselves are not filed publicly. What is filed is the partnership return, which reports the profit and each partner's share, and each partner then reports their own share on their personal return.

Can you take over from our current accountant mid-year?

Yes. We write to them for the handover information, which they are professionally obliged to provide, and pick up from the last set of accounts. Tell us where you are in the year when you enquire, because it affects what needs doing first.

Annual Accounts for GP Partnerships

Written and reviewed by the Medical Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 24 July 2026.

This is the practice-level job rather than the personal one. A GP partnership has to produce accounts that every partner can read and agree to, allocate profit under an agreement that is often decades old and occasionally unsigned, and file a partnership return that feeds into six or eight personal ones.

Where it gets contentious is never the arithmetic. It is prior shares, seniority, property, and what happens when somebody joins or leaves in the middle of a year.

Preparing the Practice Accounts

Income from the core contract, enhanced services, dispensing where the practice dispenses, premises reimbursements and any private work, matched against staff costs, premises, drugs and everything else. The output is a set of accounts with enough detail for partners to see where the money went, rather than a summary that raises more questions at the partners' meeting than it answers.

We also reconcile what the practice thinks it was paid against what it was actually paid. Statements and reconciliations do not always agree, and unclaimed income is easier to chase in the same year it arose.

Prior Shares, Seniority and Drawings

Profit allocation follows the partnership agreement: equal shares, weighted shares, prior shares for particular roles, and property where the property is held by some partners and not others. We apply the agreement as written and flag where it no longer matches what the partnership actually does, which happens more often than partners expect.

Drawings are then set against the allocation with tax reserved, so no partner ends up having drawn money that was always going to be needed in January.

Partners Joining or Leaving Mid-Year

A change of partner splits the year, and the split has to be handled in the accounts, in the allocation, in each affected partner's own return and in the pension records. Getting it wrong is expensive in both directions: an outgoing partner taxed on profit they never received, or an incoming one under-reserved.

We work the split from the actual date rather than the nearest quarter end, and give both partners their figures in writing. Each partner's personal position is then dealt with through their own Self Assessment return.

Fees for Partnership Accounts

A single fixed fee for the practice, quoted before work starts and based on the number of partners and the number of income streams rather than on turnover. Partners' personal returns are quoted separately so nobody is subsidising anybody else's complexity.

We do not charge the practice for the questions that come out of the accounts once they are issued.