Simple, practical accounting support for sole traders.

You get a fixed monthly figure in writing after a 30-minute discovery call, and it is driven by four things: how many transactions run through the business, whether you are VAT registered, whether anyone is on payroll, and the state of the records you are handing over. That is why there is no headline number on this page — the tidy version and the shoebox version of the same turnover are not the same job. The fee is fixed monthly, agreed before anything starts, and includes FreeAgent, worth up to £330 a year. There is no hourly charge for asking a question, which for most sole traders is the part that actually changes behaviour.

Plenty of sole traders file their own return perfectly well, and if your income is one stream, your expenses are a short list and you are comfortable with the rules, you probably do not need us yet. Where it stops being sensible is when there is a real decision inside the numbers: whether to incorporate, when to register for VAT, how to treat a vehicle, what to do about a year where profit jumped. Those get expensive to unpick afterwards. The honest test is whether you can name your taxable profit and your next payment on account without looking. If you cannot, the return is being filed rather than managed.

By 5 October following the end of the tax year in which your self-employed income passed the £1,000 trading allowance. Registration gets you a Unique Taxpayer Reference, which takes time to arrive, so leaving it to the deadline is a bad idea even if you meet it. Filing late brings an automatic £100 penalty even where no tax is due, then daily penalties and percentage charges as it drags on, plus interest on anything unpaid. Paying late is charged separately from filing late — people forget that. If you are already behind, tell us how far and we will work out exactly what is outstanding before quoting the catch-up.

Possibly, but not for the reason most people are told. The tax difference at modest profit levels is far smaller than it used to be once Corporation Tax, dividend rates and the extra admin are counted, and incorporating brings public accounts, a separate bank account, payroll and filings that did not exist before. It usually starts to make sense when profits are consistently above what you need to draw, because retained profit is taxed once rather than as personal income. The right answer needs your actual figures and your plans for the next two years, not a rule of thumb. Read sole trader or limited company, then ask us.

Yes, on a phased timetable set by your qualifying income — gross income from self-employment and property combined, before expenses, taken from your Self Assessment return. April 2026 for over £50,000, April 2027 for over £30,000 and April 2028 for over £20,000. From your date you send four quarterly updates plus an End of Period Statement and Final Declaration instead of one return. It does not change how much tax you owe, only how often you report. FreeAgent is included in your package and is HMRC-recognised for it, so the practical change is keeping records current through the year rather than in one January panic. See the MTD guide.

Costs incurred wholly and exclusively for the business. Where something is used privately as well — a phone, a car, a room at home — you claim the business proportion, and you need a defensible basis for the split rather than a round number. Everyday clothing is not allowable even if you only wear it for work; protective gear and genuine uniforms are. For a vehicle you choose between a flat rate per business mile and the business share of actual running costs, and you generally stay with that method for that vehicle. Keep the records digitally as you go — under MTD they have to be digital anyway, and reconstructing a year of receipts in January is where claims get lost.

Yes, and it is more common than people assume. The first job is finding out precisely what is outstanding — which years, which returns, what HMRC has already assessed or charged — because the letters people receive rarely give the full picture. Then we agree an order, usually oldest first, to stop penalties and interest compounding while we work. Where the amount owed is genuinely unaffordable, a Time to Pay arrangement with HMRC is a real option and is far easier to agree before enforcement starts than after. Catch-up work is quoted separately from the monthly fee because it is a one-off project with its own scope.

It is included at no extra cost while you are a client, worth up to £330 a year against subscribing yourself. If you leave, the licence provided through us stops, but the data is yours: you can take a full export, or move the subscription into your own name and carry on in the same file. We will not hold records hostage over a disputed invoice. Worth being clear about the trade-off — software bundled into a fee is genuinely cheaper than paying separately, but it does tie the licence to the relationship, so ask the same question of any firm offering it.