Year-end 2025-26
What is year-end?
The financial year-end is the final date of a 12-month accounting period IPSA uses to prepare financial statements to lay before Parliament and provide assurance that taxpayers’ money has been spent properly. It is essentially ‘closing the books’, the process of reviewing, reconciling and verifying that all financial transactions from the last financial year add up.
Once the process is complete, we will provide you with accurate spend data and budget information for 2025/26. This is a key step in preparing the data we use when we publish your annual business costs data.
We need your help with the process to ensure we have allocated your spend to the right financial year. To do this, we require you to submit a year-end form, and this guidance outlines the process.
The 2025/26 financial year runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
Overview of the year-end process
We need you to submit a year-end form to tell us if there are any costs that you need to move to a different financial year than the one they are currently in. If you paid for goods or services in one financial year, but they relate to a different financial year (either partially or entirely) then you may need to include these costs on the year-end form and tell us to allocate them to the correct financial year. This will make sure costs are allocated to the right budget and that you do not overspend on any of your capped budgets. There are examples in this guidance to help you determine if costs need moving.
How to determine if costs are in the right financial year
You need to consider if goods or services were used or received:
Entirely in 2025-2026
Entirely in 2026-2027
Partially in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027
You can use IPSA Online to help you determine if costs will be allocated to the right financial year by looking at key dates – when the payment card was reconciled and approved or when a reimbursement request was approved – or by checking the dates in the evidence you submitted.
The key dates to bear in mind are:
31 March 2026 – any costs that appear on your IPSA Online dashboard with a date before 31 March 2026 will be automatically allocated to the 2025/26 financial year.
8 May 2026 – these are the deadlines for you to submit your payment card reconciliation, reimbursement requests and year-end form.
You do not need to add these costs to the year-end form:
Staffing costs – the Payroll services team will review all payments made from the staffing budget in April 2026 and move relevant costs to 2025/26. Please submit and approve all payroll forms in IPSA Online by 15 April 2026.
Reward and recognition payments – reward and recognition forms completed for payments between 16 March 2026 and 15 April 2026 will include an additional drop-down menu for you to select the year the costs should be deducted from. Outside of this period, any requests submitted will be deducted from your 2026/27 staffing budget.
Travel and mileage costs – IPSA will move any travel, railcard and season ticket costs to the correct financial year. Please submit all travel costs promptly on IPSA Online.
Council tax – IPSA will check all council tax spending and allocate the costs to the correct financial year. Please continue submitting council tax costs promptly on IPSA online to enable us to allocate your spend correctly.
Costs under £100 – you do not need to include any costs below £100 on your year-end form.
Stationery from XMA, Commercial or Banner – these are direct suppliers so IPSA will allocate the cost to the right financial year.
Rental costs we pay directly – if we pay your rent directly to your landlord or agent, we will allocate the final rental payment to the correct financial year on your behalf.
Please note: if you pay for rent yourself (using the IPSA payment card or your personal card via reimbursement), you will need to include this cost on the year-end form so that we can allocate it to the correct financial year.
Template to use if you do not need to submit a year-end form
If you do not have costs that need moving across financial years, please tell us in writing.
You can email us at info@theipsa.org.uk: I confirm that I have reviewed my expenditure and have no costs that need allocating to a different financial year than what appears in the MP dashboard on IPSA Online.
What deadlines do you need to meet?
It is important that you meet these deadlines as part of the year-end process.
| DEADLINE | ACTION | DETAIL |
| 15 April 2026 – 23:59 | Submit and approve all payroll forms on IPSA Online | You do not need to submit any payroll costs on the year-end form but all payroll forms need to be submitted by the payroll cut-off date. |
| 1 May 2026 – 23:59 | Submit direct payment correction forms | Submit this form to make changes (for example, to change the expense type or budget) to costs already reimbursed on or before 31 March 2026. |
| 8 May 2026 – 23:59 | Submit year-end form | Submit a year-end form to IPSA with the information we need to enable us to allocate your costs to the correct financial year. |
| 8 May 2026 – 23:59 | Complete tasks in Task Manager | Complete all outstanding actions so that we can close your accounts. |
| 8 May 2026 – 17:00 | Reconcile payment card lines | You must reconcile all payment card lines for costs on or before 8 May 2026 so that we can close your accounts. All costs from March approved by this deadline will be automatically allocated to the 2025/26 financial year. As a result, you only need to include payment card lines on the year-end form if you want us to move the line to a different financial year. |
| 8 May 2026 – 23:59 | Submit reimbursement requests | Submit reimbursement requests for 2025/26 that you need to include on your year-end form. You can use the claims and payment card tracker to check if they have been approved. |
| 31 October 2026 – 23:59 | Pay monies owed | If you have a budget overspend for 2025/26, this will need to be repaid in full to IPSA by 31 October 2026. |
Examples of what to include on your year-end form
Scenario 1
You bought insurance to cover you from 1 April 2026 until 31 March 2027 and paid for it using your payment card on 30 March 2026. 30 March is the transaction date on IPSA Online.
Because the transaction date is before 31 March 2026, the cost will be automatically allocated to the 2025-2026 financial year even if the insurance you bought relates entirely to the 2026-2027 financial year. As a result, you need to add this transaction to the year-end form so that we can move it to the correct financial year.
Scenario 2
On 10 March 2026, the MP bought an office desk with their personal card and requested reimbursement from IPSA the same day. The request passed all approval processes in IPSA Online on 12 March 2026 and the chair was delivered to the office on 1 April 2026.
Because the request for reimbursement was complete in IPSA Online before 31 March 2026, it will be automatically allocated to the 2025/26 financial year. However, the MP didn’t receive the chair until 1 April so this cost needs to be included in the year-end form so that we can move it to the 2026/27 financial year.
Scenario 3
The MP has paid for an annual subscription for caseworker software. The payment was made in October 2025 via the IPSA payment card and reconciled on IPSA Online within usual timescales.
This service covers October 2025 to September 2026 and so it is partially in the 2025/26 financial year and in the 2026/27 financial year. This will need to be added to a year-end form for the costs to be split across the two financial years.
Scenario 4
You have costs that need allocating to the 2025/26 financial year but you submit a reimbursement request or complete the payment card reconciliation on 12 May 2026 and you didn’t include those costs on the year-end form.
They will stay in the 2026/27 financial year and cannot be moved as part of the year-end process.
How to determine what costs to include on the year-end form
This workflow should be used to decide which payment card transactions to include on a year-end form:
This workflow should be used to decide which reimbursement claims to include on a year-end form:
