Here the risk is arithmetic, not phrasing. A decimal mark that shifts position. A bracket that quietly stops meaning negative. A subtotal that no longer matches the rows above it. An auditor spots all three within a minute of opening the file. A lender spots them faster still.
So the numbers come out and get reconciled on their own. Well away from the narrative. Totals are recalculated against the rows beneath them. Every figure in the finished version is traced back to the source. Only when that passes does anyone look at how it reads.
Our financial document translation services UK open at £60 for a single statement. Files land back inside three to four working days. Columns aligned. Footnotes still pointing where they should. Need proof for an auditor or a registry? A named linguist signs a dated statement, free. Nothing is billed until the finished pages have been through your hands.
Every accounts job includes
Year end approaching? Book the slot now. Send the file later. Reporting season fills our finance linguists early. A held slot costs nothing until work starts.
Finance paperwork splits into two halves. The numbers themselves. And the story told around them. Each half fails in a completely different way. Below is what reaches this desk most often. Next to each is the element we lift out for its own separate check, before anything goes back.
The full published volume. Chairman's letter. Strategic review. Governance section. And the statements themselves. Long, heavily formatted, and read by more people than anything else you produce.
Second check: comparatives against last year's published version.
Almost pure table. Line items, subtotals, prior-year columns. A mistake has nowhere to hide here. It also has nowhere to be explained away later.
Second check: every subtotal recalculated from its own rows.
Movements in and out across a period, split three ways. Signs matter hugely here. Show an inflow as an outflow and the whole picture reverses.
Second check: direction of every movement, line by line.
A short paper. Its wording is near-formulaic on purpose. Qualified. Unqualified. Emphasis of matter. Each carries an exact meaning nobody should soften.
Second check: the opinion paragraph, against standard forms.
Monthly or quarterly internals. They go up to a parent, or across to a lender. Rarely polished. Often full of shorthand headings that only mean something inside your building.
Second check: internal shorthand queried rather than guessed.
Asked for constantly. By lenders opening facilities. By offices checking a company is real. Long runs of dated rows. Swapping one digit is easy to do and hard to spot.
Second check: closing balances traced through each page.
Filings, assessments and letters from a revenue authority abroad. Usually with a response deadline already running. Usually needed in English by yesterday.
Second check: assessed amounts, periods and reference numbers.
Slides, commentary and a data appendix. Circulated on a fixed cycle. Tone matters as much as accuracy here. These are read by people deciding whether to keep backing you.
Second check: figures in the commentary against the appendix.
Everything a buyer asks for at once. Several years of statements. Schedules. Ageing reports. Forecasts. Volume is the challenge. Consistency across the whole set is the test.
Second check: one term list applied across every file in the set.
Nobody translates accounts out of curiosity. Behind each of these jobs sits something hard. A filing date. A covenant test. An auditor mid-fieldwork. A buyer working through a data room. Someone else set every one of those dates. Pick the situation closest to yours. The level you need then becomes obvious.
A foreign parent's statements go on the British record in English. They must match what was filed at home.
A tax office has queried income earned abroad. It wants the underlying figures in a language it reads.
Facility terms usually demand quarterly numbers in the lender's language. On a date written into the loan.
Owners sit in several countries. All expect the same figures, at the same hour, in their own language.
Subsidiary numbers feed a parent's accounts. Head office cannot consolidate what its team cannot read.
Three or five years of statements go up at once. Every one is read for exposure, not for interest.
Who usually raises it: Finance Directors, Group Financial Controllers, Audit Firms, Investor Relations, Accountants In Practice and Deal And Transaction Advisers. Every one of them answers to a reporting date that will not move.
One question sets your level, and it is a short one. Are these numbers going to be read, filed, or relied upon by someone else? Reading inside the group needs no paperwork whatsoever. Filing needs a declaration attached to it. Relied upon by an office overseas? Then a third party usually witnesses it first.
Accurate figures, clean layout, nothing on top. Built for people inside the group. They need to understand a set of numbers before acting on it.
Suits:
£0.10 per word upward.
The same work, with a dated statement of completeness attached. It names the linguist responsible. Our registered details sit underneath.
Suits:
£0.12 per word upward.
A notary public watches and signs. Or a linguist enrolled with that country's courts puts their name on it. Some overseas registries and revenue offices take nothing else.
Suits:
£85 per document upward.
Reporting outward and reporting inward are two separate jobs, and each breaks in its own place. One has to satisfy a reader abroad who applies conventions your team has never used. The other has to satisfy British offices applying conventions they know intimately and check closely. Find your own side below and see what it involves.
Sterling figures prepared under British conventions. They are heading to a parent, a lender or a revenue office. That reader knows neither your language nor your layout.
What that usually involves:
Name the destination early. It decides whether you need a witnessed version. And how many days that adds.
A subsidiary's ledgers. A parent's published accounts. A supplier's statements. They arrive for consolidation, for a filing, or because an auditor asked.
What that usually involves:
We restate nothing. We convert no currency. What the numbers mean for your accounts is a question for your auditor.
A translated set of accounts is judged by whoever opens it next. Each of these readers hunts for something different. An auditor traces. A lender calculates. A registry inspects presentation. Knowing who receives your file changes how it is built. So name that reader before work starts.
Statements sit on a public record. Presentation is checked as closely as content. A declaration must sit alongside the original rather than replace it.
Enquiries about overseas earnings run to a clock. See HMRC document translation for what a compliance response has to contain.
They sample and trace. A figure that cannot be followed back to its schedule becomes a query. Queries at year end cost days nobody has spare.
Covenant tests are arithmetic. A ratio built on a misread figure fails on paper. Even when the business underneath is doing fine.
Every language version has to land together. And say the same thing. A gap between two published editions becomes a story of its own.
Outside Britain a witnessed version is often the only one accepted. That step is arranged here. Before the pack reaches you.
This is a language service, nothing more. Nobody here is an accountant. Nobody is an auditor. We hold no link with the bodies listed on this page. Figures and wording are reproduced as presented. Restating under another framework sits outside what we do. So does converting currency. So does advising on treatment.
Five stages. The figures come out of the wording at stage two. Not handled alongside it. That split is the whole point. Numbers get checked arithmetically. The narrative gets handled linguistically. Neither task can bury a mistake belonging to the other. That burying is how errors usually reach delivery.
A native Excel or Word file is best. Tell us who receives it and by when, because that decides the level.
Tables and line items come out first. So nobody is retyping a balance sheet while thinking about sentences.
Someone who reads statements for a living. Writing into their own first language. They apply the headings fixed at stage two.
Subtotals recalculated. Signs checked. Prior-year columns compared. Arithmetic first. Phrasing after.
Back in the file type it arrived as. Ready to drop into your pack. Approval first, invoice later.
Page count tells you almost nothing here. Thirty pages of schedule absorb far more hours than thirty pages of commentary. Treat the figures below as a floor for each job type, never as a quotation. What lifts yours above that floor is set out at once after.
| What You Are Sending | What That Usually Means | Usual Delivery | Rough Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single statement or schedule | Balance sheet, P&L or one-page summary | 1–2 working days | £60 / document |
| Bank statements, per page | Dated transaction runs for a lender or an office | 1–2 working days | £28 / page |
| Management accounts pack | Monthly or quarterly internals with commentary | 2–3 working days | £0.10 / word |
| Statutory accounts with declaration | Statements plus notes, certified for filing | 3–4 working days | £0.12 / word |
| Full annual report | Narrative, governance and statements together | 5–8 working days | £0.12 / word |
| Witnessed by a third party | For registries and revenue offices overseas | 4–6 working days | £85 / document |
| Results-day turnaround | Embargoed figures released at a fixed hour | Overnight | £0.17 / word |
Some raise the figure, others reduce it, and all nine get assessed against your actual file before anyone quotes you. 60 minutes sounds slow for a price. It is the reason the price you are given is the price you are billed.
A page of dense schedule takes far longer than a page of commentary. Each figure is checked on its own. Word count alone never tells the story.
Notes to the accounts often run longer than the statements they support. Tell us up front if they are in scope. Or being left out.
An Excel or Word original lets figures carry across on their own. A locked or scanned page means rebuilding the layout by hand. That costs time.
Different frameworks at each end? Then wording is researched item by item, not matched. That research is real work.
A second annual report costs clearly less than a first. Headings and comparatives are already settled. Only what changed needs attention.
March and September fill early. Everyone files at once. Book a slot ahead and you avoid the premium late arrivals pay.
Every figure here sits before VAT. It marks a floor, not a fee. Notary and legalisation charges belong to those offices. We recover them at cost, on a separate line. Finance teams on a fixed cycle can set yearly rates. Order references and a single monthly statement too.
Every pair, moving in either direction. What follows is the set that accounts travel between most often on this desk. Each sits beside the numeric habit that trips a team up the first time round. Wording is never the problem here. Separators and grouping are. Get one wrong and the figure itself changes.
| Language | The convention that catches people out |
|---|---|
| German | Comma as decimal, point as thousands separator, the exact reverse of British practice |
| French | Comma decimal with a thin space grouping thousands rather than a point |
| Spanish | Comma decimal in Spain, point decimal in much of Latin America, so the target must be named |
| Arabic | Right-to-left narrative around left-to-right figures, and tables that must be mirrored carefully |
| Chinese | Grouping in units of ten thousand, which shifts where the separators fall |
| Italian | Comma decimal, and statement headings that follow a fixed statutory order |
| Polish | Comma decimal with space grouping, plus its own chart of accounts vocabulary |
| Dutch | Comma decimal, point grouping, and abbreviations that differ from the German ones |
| Portuguese | Brazil and Portugal diverge on both wording and grouping, so the market is confirmed first |
| Hindi | Lakh and crore grouping, which has no direct British equivalent and is written out in full |
Also handled regularly: Swedish, Thai, Japanese, Czech, Indonesian, Romanian, Danish, Ukrainian, Korean, Finnish, Turkish, Greek, Norwegian, Hungarian, Russian, Vietnamese.
Not one of these is a language mistake. Each is an arithmetic or formatting failure. A general translator has no reason to go looking for them. All six appear in work sent here to be verified. Usually once a lender or an auditor has queried it.
Across much of Europe the comma is the decimal point. Carry 1,250 over untouched. One and a quarter becomes twelve hundred and fifty. Nothing on the page looks wrong.
Brackets mark a loss in British and American presentation. Replace them with a plain figure. In a market that uses a minus sign, a deficit now reads as a surplus.
Retype a table by hand and one digit goes wrong somewhere. It surfaces when a reader adds the column up. By then the file has usually been circulated.
Reporting frameworks differ. A line item in one is often not the same item in another. Where no true match exists, we keep the original and explain it. We do not pick the nearest word.
Longer target wording pushes columns out of line. Figures end up under the wrong heading. Obvious once seen. Invisible if nobody opens the printed layout.
Statements lean on cross-references constantly. Renumber the notes and every reference breaks. An auditor now lands on material that answers nothing.
Plenty of linguists can handle a sentence about revenue growth. Very few will pause and add a column back up. Fewer still confirm the total holds. That gap is the whole difference. It is usually why a finance team stays after its first year end.
Each subtotal is added up again from the rows beneath it. If the arithmetic breaks, we found a swapped digit. Before your auditor did.
Where a line item has no true counterpart abroad, the original stays. An explanation sits beside it. Picking a near-enough term is a reporting decision. That is not ours to make.
Column alignment, indentation and note references all carry meaning. The finished file is opened in print view. Then compared against the source, page by page.
Unpublished results move to a restricted route. One named team. No shared drives. Delivery timed to your release hour, not our convenience.
Your previous report is kept as the baseline. Headings and comparatives then stay identical between editions. Analysts notice drift. And they ask why.
Everyone files in the same weeks. Tell us your year end and a slot is held in advance. That is how a March deadline is met without an emergency rate.
Written and checked by [Name], [MITI, Dip Trans], Head of Financial Translation at Business Translations UK.
Last reviewed: · Next review: [Month Year]
Genuine year ends and reporting cycles we handled, each showing the document, the language pair and how many days it took. Look for the one closest to your own reporting calendar before you commit to a filing date.
Every one of these came from a real call. Almost always with a spreadsheet open on one screen. And a date ringed in red on the other. None of them is a broad enquiry about translation. Each one belongs to a single file with a single deadline. Anything else troubling you? Message it through WhatsApp in office hours.
Carried across wherever the file allows. Retyping is where swapped digits are born. Send a native Excel or Word file. The numbers then move without a human touching them. Only a flattened scan forces manual entry. Then a second person checks every value.
Formatting yes. Formulas in most cases. Labels are replaced. Cell references stay untouched, so the workbook still calculates. Does a formula use text matching? We flag it rather than break it silently. You then decide how to handle that sheet.
Clearly, yes. Your first edition becomes the baseline. Headings, note titles and comparatives are already settled. Year two is priced mainly on what changed. Groups reporting in three or four languages see the biggest difference.
Yes. Auditors usually want the statement, not a plain file. It is dated. It names the linguist. It carries our registered details. So anyone can ring and confirm it. Want qualifications listed too? Ask, and they are included.
Workable, though it costs more and takes longer. The table structure has to be rebuilt first. Only then can anything be checked. Does a native file exist anywhere in your finance system? Ten minutes of searching is worth it before you order.
Never. Symbols and units appear as reported. The values are left alone. Applying a rate is a reporting decision with a date attached. That belongs to your finance team. Not to a language supplier.
Please arrange it. That is why nothing is charged before approval. Local colleagues often prefer certain headings. Those preferences go in without a further charge. Gather their notes into one reply if you can. Feedback arriving in pieces from four people is how an amendment slips through.
No more than three: whoever drafts, whoever verifies the arithmetic, and the person co-ordinating. A NDA is in place before the first file opens. Nothing is ever pasted into a public engine. Storage follows GDPR, and if you want it wiped once delivered, that is confirmed to you in writing.
Ours, and covered by policy. Each certified page names a person and carries their signature. So accountability has a face, not a letterhead. Want the insurer and the sum insured in writing? Directors can have both before instructing us.
Often, yes. It takes a small team working to one shared glossary, not a single linguist. Say so at quote stage. The schedule then runs backwards from your publication date. Statements finish first, so checking has room to breathe.
Send the file across. Give us the date it must be filed or released. Back comes the pair, the level, a price and a completion day. No invoice is raised until you have checked the finished report from front to back, and signed it off yourself.