For directors of Irish small & micro limited companies · verify filings on CORE
Add your company ARD. The Guardian calculates a 56-day Form B1 filing date from your input, estimates the late-filing fee if the date has passed, exports calendar reminders, and keeps a local late-filing-history record so repeat late filings can be reviewed before they affect audit exemption. It runs entirely in your browser; your company data never leaves your device.
Not sure where you stand? Run the free CRO deadline + audit-exemption checker — enter your ARD and it returns a calculated filing date, your penalty-if-filed-today estimate and an honest read on your allowance. No sign-up, no email, nothing stored on a server. Open the free checker → · get the full paid tool →
Built around CRO annual-return guidance and the audit-exemption change commenced 16 July 2025 under Section 22 of the Companies (Corporate Governance, Enforcement and Regulatory Provisions) Act 2024. A reminder/checklist tool — not legal, accounting, audit or company-secretarial advice, and not affiliated with the CRO.
Why this exists
Every Irish company has an Annual Return Date. You file Form B1 — and usually financial statements — within 56 days, online on CORE. Most directors know that. What quietly changed on 16 July 2025 is what happens when you slip:
The signed financial statements have to be uploaded inside the window too — submitting the B1 isn't the end. Field mismatches get bounced. First-time CORE access eats days. "I'll do it on the last day" is how people miss it.
Under the amended regime, a qualifying small or micro company does not automatically lose audit exemption on the first late filing in a five-year period. A later late filing in that window can change the position.
If a late filing is already recorded, the next annual-return deadline deserves earlier action and, where needed, accountant or company-secretarial review.
The late-filing penalty: €100 the day after the deadline, then €3/day, capped at €1,200 per return. Annoying. Bounded. You'd recover.
The official sources say repeat late filing in the relevant five-year period can remove audit-exemption entitlement for following years. The tracker records the history; your adviser confirms the consequence.
Filing your CT1 with Revenue does not satisfy your CRO obligation — a mix-up that trips up a lot of owner-directors. Nobody nags you about the B1 until it's late. The question that actually matters:
“What filing date am I working to — and does late-filing history need review?”
The mechanism
Free CRO deadline calculators tell you a date and stop. This does the part they usually leave out: it records late-filing history and escalates the warning when a prior late filing means the next deadline needs extra attention. Three steps, then keep the reminders current.
Enter the name, CRO number and Annual Return Date from your CORE record. The Guardian computes an ARD + 56-day filing date from that input — and you can add every company you're a director of.
A red/amber/green badge per company, your penalty-if-filed-today estimate, a portfolio dashboard, and a late-filing-history tracker that turns red earlier when a prior late filing is recorded.
One click exports a calendar file with alerts at 28, 14, 7 and 1 days before the deadline, into the Google/Apple/Outlook calendar you already check. Work the filing checklist, mark it filed, roll to next year.
One late filing is recorded in the window. A further late filing may affect audit-exemption entitlement; verify the next deadline and get qualified advice where needed.
A faithful illustration of the in-browser tool. Your real dashboard is generated live from your own companies and dates. Penalty, window and audit-exemption figures are editable defaults you can correct in Settings — always verify your ARD on the CRO register.
What's inside
A self-contained web app: a multi-company portfolio dashboard, ARD + 56-day filing-date calculation, RAG status per company, penalty-if-filed-today estimate, late-filing-history tracker, B1 + financial-statements filing checklist, .ics calendar reminders, editable rules, and local export/import backup. No account. No backend. Works offline.
The part simple date calculators ignore. Logs late filings against the relevant five-year window, shows recorded late-filing history as pips, and escalates a company to RED earlier when a prior late filing is recorded.
One click exports an .ics file with escalating alerts at 28, 14, 7 and 1 days before the deadline, plus a deadline-day alert, into the calendar you already look at. No subscription, no push-notification service, no email harvesting.
The written half: the 56-day window, the penalty maths, the 16 Jul 2025 regime explained in plain English, the section 343 extension route, an annual rhythm, honest limitations, and official sources you can re-check.
A fill-in evidence trail, one per company per year: ARD, filing date, late-filing record, the cross-checked B1 fields, the financial-statements-upload step, and your CORE submission reference.
A ready spreadsheet to log every company's ARD, filing date, size category, late-filing history and accountant/company-secretarial contact in one place. Because rules can change, every rule in the tool is an editable default.
Honest pricing
Use it for every company you track. No subscription, no account, no backend.
Checkout URL will be added when the live provider link exists. You still need to verify all official filing details on CORE and use qualified advice where audit-exemption status matters.
Add at least one company, verify the ARD on CORE, and work through the checklist/reminder flow. If the kit does not give you a clearer private filing calendar and late-filing-history record, email within 30 days for a refund. This is not a guarantee of CRO acceptance, on-time filing, or audit-exemption availability.
Questions, answered straight
No. This is a self-assessment reminder and checklist tool plus a plain-English playbook. It is not legal, accounting, audit or company-secretarial advice, creates no professional relationship, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Companies Registration Office (CRO). Use it to organise dates and records, then speak to a qualified accountant for anything that affects audit-exemption status or company size category.
No, by design. You file your B1 and financial statements yourself on core.cro.ie. The Guardian keeps your data off any server and stays firmly a self-assessment aid rather than a regulated service. It gives you the deadline, the reminders, the allowance tracking and the filing checklist — you do the actual filing on CORE, which is where it belongs.
Nowhere. The tool runs entirely in your browser and saves your companies, dates and notes to your browser's local storage only. Nothing is transmitted to a server, there's no account and no login, and it works offline. You can export an encryptable JSON backup yourself and re-import it on another device.
They are editable defaults reflecting the CRO / Companies Act position checked for this release, with sources documented in the Playbook so you can re-check them. The 56-day window, the €100 + €3/day / €1,200-cap late-filing-fee default, and the late-filing-history rule are values you can correct in Settings if CRO updates a figure. We do not present any figure as guaranteed-current law — always verify your own ARD and deadline on the CRO register.
Not necessarily, but it is a reason to be careful. If one late filing is recorded, the Guardian flags the next filing window earlier. If audit-exemption status may already be affected, the Playbook points to CRO's section 343 extension guidance and tells you to get proper advice.
Yes — that's a core use case. Add every company you're a director of; the portfolio dashboard shows red/amber/green across all of them at a glance, each gets its own deadline, penalty figure, allowance tracker and .ics reminders, and the included multi-company register spreadsheet keeps the whole portfolio in one place.
This is why every rule is an editable default. If CRO revises a penalty or the audit-exemption mechanics, you correct the value in Settings yourself. The Playbook lists official sources so you can confirm the current position whenever you file.
Yes — we build with AI assistance and review the content against the published CRO position and named sources (listed in the Playbook). We're transparent about it. We do not fabricate statutes, figures, testimonials or user counts, and the tool repeatedly points you back to the CRO register and to a qualified accountant for your own decisions.
An instant download: the Guardian tool (open it in any modern browser — it works offline), the CRO B1 & Audit-Exemption Playbook, the Filing-Record template, and the multi-company register spreadsheet (CSV, opens in Excel/Numbers/Sheets). Nothing to install, no account to create.
Get the tool, reminders, late-filing-history tracker and playbook — with a 30-day clarity refund promise.
Get the tracker — €59One-time · runs in your browser · not affiliated with the CRO