[The Jester of Wibbly]

My accountant reckons it's a prelude to quarterly tax payments, a few years down the line.

That'll be fun.

MTD is being phased in depending on your turnover.
from April 2026, for those with qualifying income over £50,000
from April 2027, for those with qualifying income over £30,000
I too would bet that quarterly tax payments are on the way just like the way VAT payments work.

50,000 profit or turnover?

It's Turnover. gross profit..

For me when ready I will be using 123 sheets.  Simple bridging spreadsheet costing £20 for the year.

Will 123 sheets work with George do you think?

You cant use George to send the data to HMRC, that's why bridging software is needed like 123 sheets to do that job. 

George like any other software is classed digital.  It's just good bye to old fashioned paper and pen and paper storage. 

Read the FAQ on 123 sheets page, they are really good.

If using George you will still need to make sure all expenses are kept separately and digitally stored instead of filed paper.  I never use George for accounting anyway.  I use a spreadsheet, I created, set up like a p&l recording all expenses.  I then enter a total income onto my sheet each month from George. 

I will just modify my spreadsheet so it also pulls calculated quarterly totals aswell.  Then transfer those figures to 123 sheets .  It's really simple.

[dazmond]

Don't over think it guys.

Most of us already keep records digitally on spreadsheets and databases anyway.

We just need to prepare it ready for quarterly totals for uploads to HMRC using a simple authorised software.

For us it's easy to keep digital outgoings but income for many small payments can be just totals....

under MTD for Income Tax, you can record income as daily, weekly, or monthly totals — as long as you’re doing it in digital format and your software supports it.

HMRC's guidance allows:

> “You can record totals of income and expenses daily, weekly or monthly — you don’t have to record every individual transaction.”



So if you receive multiple small payments, like:

10 sales in a day, or

50 payments through PayPal in a week


You don’t need to enter each one separately — you can just enter a daily or weekly total, as long as:

What’s required:

That total is recorded digitally (in software or spreadsheet)

It’s accurate and supported by backup (like your bank, PayPal, or Etsy report)

You keep those records in case HMRC ever asks for detail



---

Examples:

Etsy seller: “Sales total – 3rd April – £186.23”

Cash-in-hand worker: “Weekly total – w/c 8th April – £400”

PayPal earnings: “Monthly PayPal income – March – £1,050”


Then at the end of each quarter, your software adds up all your income and submits a summary to HMRC — not every transaction

So basically I could just print off 3 monthly turnover and expenses total for that quarter on cleaner planner and input it into 3rd party software for HMRC?

Sounds pretty easy as I already keep a digital record of every payment,turnover,expense every day through my CP app on my phone. I wonder if they'll keep the cash basis accounting so it's only actual money in(payments)rather than jobs done(and some not paid)thats inputted?.I still keep receipts for everything to do with my business both digitally and paper receipts

[The Jester of Wibbly]

Don't over think it guys.

Most of us already keep records digitally on spreadsheets and databases anyway.

We just need to prepare it ready for quarterly totals for uploads to HMRC using a simple authorised software.

For us it's easy to keep digital outgoings but income for many small payments can be just totals....

under MTD for Income Tax, you can record income as daily, weekly, or monthly totals — as long as you’re doing it in digital format and your software supports it.

HMRC's guidance allows:

> “You can record totals of income and expenses daily, weekly or monthly — you don’t have to record every individual transaction.”



So if you receive multiple small payments, like:

10 sales in a day, or

50 payments through PayPal in a week


You don’t need to enter each one separately — you can just enter a daily or weekly total, as long as:

What’s required:

That total is recorded digitally (in software or spreadsheet)

It’s accurate and supported by backup (like your bank, PayPal, or Etsy report)

You keep those records in case HMRC ever asks for detail



---

Examples:

Etsy seller: “Sales total – 3rd April – £186.23”

Cash-in-hand worker: “Weekly total – w/c 8th April – £400”

PayPal earnings: “Monthly PayPal income – March – £1,050”


Then at the end of each quarter, your software adds up all your income and submits a summary to HMRC — not every transaction

So basically I could just print off 3 monthly turnover and expenses total for that quarter on cleaner planner and input it into 3rd party software for HMRC?

Sounds pretty easy as I already keep a digital record of every payment,turnover,expense every day through my CP app on my phone. I wonder if they'll keep the cash basis accounting so it's only actual money in(payments)rather than jobs done(and some not paid)thats inputted?.I still keep receipts for everything to do with my business both digitally and paper receipts

Yes correct Daz.  It's as simple as that.

That's why I'm just going to use the bridging software 123 sheets for that exact reason.    On their website you can watch their video on how easy it works and can even try the demo out.   You only need to use their template version as you have your own system in place.   

All you need is total income for the quarter and total expenses if you select simplified accounting.

[dazmond]

So basically I just need to log in to my gateway account with my UTR number through 123 sheets software and submit basic turnover/expenses for that quarter 4 times a year with a final declaration at the end of January?(or April 5th)

Sounds pretty easy but it's obviously more admin(not just for me but for HMRC) and expense for what is a very simple straightforward business.

I don't understand why HMRC are changing the self assessment system as it works perfectly fine as it is(for me anyway).

[Spruce]

My accountant reckons it's a prelude to quarterly tax payments, a few years down the line.

That'll be fun.

MTD is being phased in depending on your turnover.
from April 2026, for those with qualifying income over £50,000
from April 2027, for those with qualifying income over £30,000
I too would bet that quarterly tax payments are on the way just like the way VAT payments work.

50,000 profit or turnover?

It's Turnover. gross profit..

For me when ready I will be using 123 sheets.  Simple bridging spreadsheet costing £20 for the year.

Will 123 sheets work with George do you think?

You cant use George to send the data to HMRC, that's why bridging software is needed like 123 sheets to do that job. 

George like any other software is classed digital.  It's just good bye to old fashioned paper and pen and paper storage. 

Read the FAQ on 123 sheets page, they are really good.

If using George you will still need to make sure all expenses are kept separately and digitally stored instead of filed paper.  I never use George for accounting anyway.  I use a spreadsheet, I created, set up like a p&l recording all expenses.  I then enter a total income onto my sheet each month from George. 

I will just modify my spreadsheet so it also pulls calculated quarterly totals aswell.  Then transfer those figures to 123 sheets .  It's really simple.

This is what I've done.

All my expenses are on a spread sheet which I have now put my running expenses into quarterly periods. At one time I just had two pages for each tax year. The first was capital expenses and the second was all my running cost expenses. Now those running cost expenses have 4 pages, one for each quarter and a 5th page putting all the totals for each quarter together.

[The Jester of Wibbly]

So basically I just need to log in to my gateway account with my UTR number through 123 sheets software and submit basic turnover/expenses for that quarter 4 times a year with a final declaration at the end of January?(or April 5th)

Sounds pretty easy but it's obviously more admin(not just for me but for HMRC) and expense for what is a very simple straightforward business.

I don't understand why HMRC are changing the self assessment system as it works perfectly fine as it is(for me anyway).

Yea it's causing a lot of stress for self employed businesses.    The end of year final figures still have the same extended deadlines of 31 Jan.  But I don't think they have finalised all that yet.   Going forward they have said the Gateway system will be closed down.

We are lucky in our profession providing you're solo with no VAT.   Most other businesses need accounting software to function.  That's what quickbooks and some of the other apps are for.   We don't need that because we need dedicated software to run our database and diary which incorporates accounting software.  It's exactly the reason why bridging software is available to us.

It is a ball ache and a little more admin for us.  But it could have been worse with all the poor information out there. 

I wouldn't be surprised if they suspend it again as the first phase gets rolled out in 2026.   It will be a confusing roll with issues.   HMRC have not done a good job educating the masses.

[Roy Harding]

I was talking yesterday to Mark who has developed Squeegee, and he said they are intergrating MTD into there app as we speak. As they are already aproved for VAT.

[CleanClear]

HMRC's guidance allows:

> “You can record totals of income and expenses daily, weekly or monthly — you don’t have to record every individual transaction.”



So if you receive multiple small payments, like:

10 sales in a day, or

50 payments through PayPal in a week


You don’t need to enter each one separately — you can just enter a daily or weekly total, as long as:

What’s required:

That total is recorded digitally (in software or spreadsheet)

It’s accurate and supported by backup (like your bank, PayPal, or Etsy report)

You keep those records in case HMRC ever asks for detail



---

Examples:

Etsy seller: “Sales total – 3rd April – £186.23”

Cash-in-hand worker: “Weekly total – w/c 8th April – £400”

PayPal earnings: “Monthly PayPal income – March – £1,050”


Then at the end of each quarter, your software adds up all your income and submits a summary to HMRC — not every transaction

I'm not saying you're wrong, but where are you getting this from as i can't seem to find it ? I get the opposite if i look on HMRC website ?

[The Jester of Wibbly]

It all depends on the MTD software that's being used to send quarterly figures to HMRC.

The information on HMRC website is so generic and poorly explained for certain situations and professions

All HMRC are interested in is Quarterly totals (income/expenses/profit) and the end of year tax return.

As for everything else, it just needs to be made available digitally if HMRC ever requests it.  So everything will be recorded on your Window Cleaning Software you use.

It's no different from today's record keeping method,  other than swapping out any old fashioned paper, pen, books and filing cabinets for digital storage.