A side hustle grows legs. A contract turns into something regular. You decide you'd rather answer to clients than to a manager. Being a sole trader is still the simplest way to run a business in the UK.
On a practical level, being a sole trader means you are the business. You make the decisions, earn the income, pay the bills and deal with HMRC.
Typical day‑to‑day realities include:
You do ending up wearing a few hats but not all at once and most sole traders find their own way of keeping things ticking along without overthinking it.
When the systems are simple and the accounting support is there when you need it, the administrative side of a business fades into the background and you’re free to just get on with things – really the whole point of having your own business isn’t it? We can help you do just that.
Making Tax Digital doesn’t scrap Self Assessment. You still have to file a Self Assessment Tax Return but what MTD does is to spread the workload out over the year. So, instead of everything being gathered up and reported on once a year, you keep digital records and send quarterly updates to HMRC during the year. At the end of the year, the annual submission pulls it all together, confirms the numbers, and finalises the tax.
We can help you by setting you up and training you on the software so you understand what you’re submitting and how and, if you like, we could also offer to just review your figures before they are submitted to HMRC so you can become more confident in your submissions as you gain experience.
* For the HMRC Mandation Timetable, select the FAQ below headed When must I register for Making Tax Digital (MTD)?
Self Assessment is simply how HMRC works out what tax you owe when you’re self‑employed.
Instead of tax being taken automatically, you declare your income and expenses *once a year and the figures are used to calculate the bill. For most sole traders, it’s a straightforward summary of what came in, what went out, and what was left.
Where people usually struggle isn’t the tax itself, but the uncertainty around what should be included and when. That’s where having support helps. We make sure everything that needs to be declared is there and that the final numbers make sense to you.
* Even if you are registered for MTD and send quarterly updates, you will still have to submit a final return (Self Assessment), at the end of the year.
Once you’re registered for VAT, the main decision is how you are going to account for it.
Most businesses use accrual (or invoice) accounting.
The alternative is the cash accounting scheme.
At the end of the day, neither scheme is better in the abstract; it really comes down to cash-flow, your admin and how your business actually behaves.
We will help you to understand that and how to choose the scheme that fits how you work.
We don’t manage you, we support you. We explain things in plain English and we don’t pretend the rules are simpler than they are. We work around how you actually run your business and if you want to stay hands-on, we’ll help you do that too.
HMRC has set out a phased MTD mandation timetable, bringing different taxpayers into Making Tax Digital at different dates which is as follows:
From 6 April 2026
Sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000 must comply with MTD for Income Tax. This means keeping digital records and submitting quarterly updates using MTD‑compatible software.
From 6 April 2027
The threshold drops. Those with qualifying income over £30,000 are mandated into MTD.
From 6 April 2028
The scope widens again to include individuals with qualifying income over £20,000.
If you're unsure as to what constitutes qualifying income or how to register, please get in touch with us.
Legally you don't but ... practically, you should. Having an accountant helps save time, tax and stress. When you are starting out for the first time or your business is growing a little quicker than you thought it would, time suddenly becomes a resource in short supply. There will quickly come a time when you will need to decide where spending your time is most valuable.
That's a lot more common than people admit and there are a multitude of reasons for this from a key staff member leaving suddenly to illness to the business owner just being overwhelmed. We will review the situation, help you have a tidy up, catch-up what needs to be done and then explain any further requirements such as process tweaking. If you prefer, you can carry on doing your own bookkeeping and just keep us for review, training or compliance purposes.