The deadlines, exactly #
GOV.UK sets the phased thresholds for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax by qualifying income:
| Qualifying income | Must use MTD for Income Tax from |
|---|---|
| Over £50,000 | 6 April 2026 |
| Over £30,000 | 6 April 2027 |
| Over £20,000 | 6 April 2028 |
HMRC writes to confirm once your qualifying income exceeds the relevant threshold for a tax year. The update cycle is every three months for each self employment and property business, with standard periods ending 5 July, 5 October, 5 January and 5 April, and deadlines of 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May.
Each digital record needs three things: the amount, the date the income was received or the expense incurred, and the category. GOV.UK is clear that this does not replace the paperwork.
you still need to keep original records or supporting documents (or copies of them) that you have used to prepare your tax return, such as bank statements and invoices
Why this lands harder on a trade business than on an office #
Because trade expenses are not generated at a desk. They are generated at a merchant counter, in a van, by three different people, on account, at eight in the morning.
A consultancy has twelve invoices a quarter arriving by email. An electrical contractor with four vans has several hundred small purchase documents a quarter, most of them on paper, most of them collected by someone who is not the person who has to account for them.
5h 20m
A week on business admin, on average
NOW Report 2026
93%
Report stress or anxiety from running the business
NOW Report 2026
Both figures come from the NOW Report 2026, run by Powered Now with Installer across 140 UK tradespeople and reported by PHAM News on 22 July 2026.
The four document problem #
Parts ordering looks simple and is not, because a single set of parts generates several documents that all say roughly the same thing in different formats.
-
The order
Placed by phone, at a counter or through a portal.
-
The delivery note or counter ticket
The bit that goes in the van.
-
The supplier invoice or monthly statement
Arrives later, and is aggregated.
-
The job record
What says these parts were for 14 Mill Lane.
Matching those four is the actual work, and it is not ordering, it is reconciliation. It is also where money leaks: parts that never make it onto a customer invoice, credits for returns that never arrive, and a monthly statement nobody can check line by line because the tickets are in four vans.
Which parts of this run on rules #
Runs on rules
- Capturing that a document exists, with its amount and date
- Assigning it a category, which is rules in the common cases and judgement at the edges
- Matching a counter ticket to a supplier invoice line, which is reference matching
- Spotting a statement line with no matching ticket, which is a set difference
- Making sure parts reached the customer invoice, if the parts were recorded against the job
Needs a person
- Deciding what to buy, and from whom
- Deciding whether to query a supplier over a small discrepancy
Five of those seven are matching and capture. This is the double keying problem in its purest form, and nobody in a trade business calls it automation. They call it putting it in twice, or three times. It is the same pattern the Department for Education named in its own workload review as re-entry of data into multiple systems.
The invoice at the other end #
The same five facts that come in on a supplier document go out on yours. GOV.UK sets what an invoice must include.
- A unique identification number
- Your business name, address and contact information
- The customer name and address
- A clear description of what you are charging for
- The supply date
- The invoice date
- The amounts
- The VAT amount if applicable
- The total owed
None of those nine items is a decision. Every one of them exists somewhere already by the time the job is finished.
Where to look first #
Take one quarter. Count the purchase documents, count how many were entered by a human, and count how many minutes the statement reconciliation took. Then ask the question that usually decides it: how many parts bought in that quarter cannot be traced to a job. The cost of admin time calculator will turn the counts into hours, and CIS returns and the reverse charge covers the other monthly cycle that lands on the same person.