An osakeyhtiön tilinpäätös is the company's official financial statement, built from the income statement, balance sheet and notes. Your shareholders' meeting (yhtiökokous) must approve it, and you must then file it with PRH within a legally mandated timeframe after your financial period's end. Filing through YTJ within this period is free; missing it results in PRH charging a late fee.
TL;DR:
- The filing must include a clear, correctly formatted set of documents, with separate files for each, using the proper attachment types and formats like iXBRL.
- Approval occurs in the yhtiökokous before submission, with a strict eight-month deadline from the financial year's end that must be met to avoid late fees or deregistration.
- The board and managing director are liable for any errors in the tilinpäätös, especially if the company exceeds audit thresholds requiring additional reports and signed audit opinions.
- Preparing the financial statement should follow a step-by-step process, including timely bookkeeping, review, approval, and correct official filing procedures, with buffer time to handle delays.
- Using professional accountants is recommended once complexity increases, particularly for companies crossing audit limits, running multiple streams, or lacking internal resources for accurate reconciliation.
Table of Contents
- What documents does the osakeyhtiön tilinpäätös need to include?
- When must you approve and file your osakeyhtiö's tilinpäätös?
- Who is responsible if the tilinpäätös is wrong?
- Step by step: preparing, approving and filing your tilinpäätös
- Common tilinpäätös errors and the materiality principle
- Where can you find a company's published tilinpäätöstiedot?
- Finovate's practical guidance on when to bring in an accountant
- Practical priorities for company owners
- Get your tilinpäätös prepared and filed without the guesswork
- Sources
What documents does the osakeyhtiön tilinpäätös need to include?
Every osakeyhtiö must produce a tuloslaskelma (income statement), a tase (balance sheet) and liitetiedot (notes to the accounts). Small and micro companies can often stop there. Larger companies, and any company that crosses the size thresholds under Kirjanpitolaki, must also attach a toimintakertomus (report of the board of directors) and, in some cases, a rahoituslaskelma (cash flow statement). Comparative figures (vertailutiedot) from the previous financial year belong in the tase and tuloslaskelma too, so readers can see the trend, not just a snapshot.
If your company falls under the audit obligation, you also need the tilintarkastuskertomus and, always, the signed yhtiökokouksen pöytäkirja confirming approval.
File formats trip up more entrepreneurs than the accounting itself. Verohallinto forwards correctly named electronic attachments straight to PRH, but PDF portfolios routinely fail this automated handoff. Practical rules to follow:
- Submit one clearly named file per document, never a bundled PDF portfolio.
- Use the correct PRH liitetyypit (attachment types) so the system routes each file properly.
- If your accounting software produces iXBRL, you can file that format instead. Once PRH receives it by your tax return deadline, you avoid sending a separate PDF entirely.
When must you approve and file your osakeyhtiö's tilinpäätös?
Order matters here more than speed. The tilinpäätös must be prepared, then formally approved at the yhtiökokous, and only then filed with PRH. Submitting an unapproved statement is a common and entirely avoidable error that can invalidate the filing.
The eight month rule is the one figure to remember. Filing your approved tilinpäätös with PRH via YTJ costs nothing if it happens within eight months of your financial period ending. Miss that window and PRH applies a late filing fee, on top of the risk that repeated non-submission leads PRH to remove the company from the register altogether.
Many owners confuse internal working deadlines with the legal filing deadline. A workable internal rhythm looks like this:
- Prepare the draft tilinpäätös within roughly four months of the financial year's close.
- Hold the yhtiökokous and get formal approval within around six months, well ahead of the legal cut-off.
- File the approved statement with PRH through YTJ or OmaVero before the eight month mark.
Building in that buffer protects you if your accountant needs extra time or a board member is unreachable for signature.
Who is responsible if the tilinpäätös is wrong?
The board and managing director carry legal responsibility for the tilinpäätös, and that does not shift just because an external accountant prepared it. Suomi for what gets filed.
Audit obligations change the picture. If your company crosses the statutory size thresholds for turnover, balance sheet total or headcount, you need a tilintarkastus and a signed tilintarkastuskertomus attached to the filing.
Practical documentation to keep in order:
- The signed yhtiökokouksen pöytäkirja recording the approval date and decision.
- Board minutes showing who reviewed the draft before it went to shareholders.
- Correspondence confirming your accountant's draft was checked, not simply accepted.
Step by step: preparing, approving and filing your tilinpäätös
- Finish your bookkeeping first. Reconcile bank accounts, confirm outstanding invoices, accruals and depreciation, and close the ledger for the financial period before anyone drafts a statement.
- Produce the tuloslaskelma, tase and liitetiedot, plus toimintakertomus or rahoituslaskelma if your company's size requires them.
- Prepare yhtiökokous materials and circulate the draft to the board and shareholders with enough notice for genuine review, not a rubber stamp.
- Hold the meeting and record the pöytäkirja, capturing the approval date clearly since PRH relies on it.
- Select the correct Verohallinto liitetyypit for each document before uploading anything.
- Submit through OmaVero or YTJ, using single named files or iXBRL rather than a combined PDF.
- Check PRH's register afterwards to confirm the filing was accepted and published, and note the date for next year's schedule.
Pro Tip: Set a calendar reminder at the four month mark of your financial year, not the eight month deadline. That gives your accountant, board and shareholders room to fix problems before the free filing window closes.
Common tilinpäätös errors and the materiality principle
Kirjanpitolaki requires the tilinpäätös to give a true and fair view of the company's results and position, and Finnish guidance applies this through the olennaisuusperiaate, the materiality principle. An item is material if omitting or misstating it would change how a reader of the accounts judges the company. A rounding difference of a few euros rarely matters; an unrecorded loan or missing revenue recognition almost always does.
Filing rejections tend to come from a small set of repeat mistakes:
- Uploading a PDF portfolio instead of single named files, which breaks automated PRH processing.
- Choosing the wrong liitetyyppi for a document.
- Filing before the yhtiökokous has formally approved the statement.
- Getting the approval or financial period end date wrong on the submission.
If you spot an error after filing, correcting it usually means an oikaisuvaatimus. Note that Verohallinto does not forward tilinpäätökset attached to an oikaisuvaatimus to PRH automatically, so corrected documents need to go to PRH directly.
Pro Tip: Read your draft tilinpäätös once as if you were a bank assessing a loan application. Numbers that would worry a lender are usually material enough to double check before approval.
Where can you find a company's published tilinpäätöstiedot?
PRH's kaupparekisteri is the public record. Anyone, including banks, suppliers and competitors, can search a company by name or business ID and pull its filed accounts once published. Verohallinto and PRH exchange data behind the scenes, so a correctly filed statement typically appears in the register within weeks of acceptance.
- Search PRH's kaupparekisteri directly for filed and published statements.
- Check Suomi.fi's business guidance for an overview of what becomes public and when.
- Avoid including unnecessary personal data (private addresses, personal bank details) in notes or attachments, since published filings are visible to anyone who searches them.
Finovate's practical guidance on when to bring in an accountant
Some owners manage a straightforward micro-company tilinpäätös themselves. Complexity changes that calculation fast: crossing audit thresholds, running multiple revenue streams, or simply not having eight uninterrupted hours before a deadline all push the balance toward outsourcing. Even then, you remain legally accountable for the filed statement, so review whatever your accountant drafts before it goes to the yhtiökokous.
Pricing for tilinpäätös work usually tracks three things:
- Company size and transaction volume during the financial year.
- Whether toimintakertomus, rahoituslaskelma or a full tilintarkastus apply.
- How clean your bookkeeping was going into the close, since reconstructing missing records takes far longer than reviewing tidy ones.
Professional accounting firms prepare the required documents in the file formats PRH and Verohallinto actually accept, handle the OmaVero and YTJ submission, and liaise with auditors where a tilintarkastus is required. Our guide to right accounting services for Finnish small businesses covers how engagement scope typically works.
Pro Tip: Ask any accountant upfront which liitetyypit and file formats they use for PRH filing. A firm that cannot answer specifically has not filed many tilinpäätökset recently.
Practical priorities for company owners
Accuracy and clear documentation matter more than speed. A tilinpäätös filed on time but built on sloppy reconciliations creates more work later, through corrections, tax queries or a PRH rejection, than one filed a week later but done properly. You remain the person accountable for what gets approved, so read the final draft before signing, even when a professional prepared it.
— Busayo
Get your tilinpäätös prepared and filed without the guesswork
Accounting professionals handle parts of the tilinpäätös process that cause the most delays: choosing the right documents for the company's size, formatting files in accepted formats, and keeping the approval and filing sequence in the correct order with help from a Finnish AI Content Generator.
Send bookkeeping records and the financial period's closing figures, and accounting professionals can draft the tuloslaskelma, tase and liitetiedot, prepare yhtiökokous materials, and handle the OmaVero and YTJ submission directly. Pricing depends on company size, transaction volume and whether an audit applies, so ask for a quote once your company's numbers are known. Read more about essential financial report requirements for Finnish SMEs or visit Finovate's accounting and tax services to start the conversation about your next tilinpäätös.
Sources
- PRH - Osakeyhtiö ja osuuskunta tilinpäätöksen ilmoittaminen kaupparekisteriin
- Osakeyhtiön tilinpäätös - Minilex