Signed up?
Your first steps

Signing up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, or being signed up by HMRC, is the start rather than the end. Nothing has been sent to HMRC yet, and the choices you make in the next few weeks, especially your update periods, are hard to change once your first update has gone.

This guide puts the first steps in order, from finding the service in your HMRC account to sending your first quarterly update. It follows GOV.UK's "Use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax" guide.

“Before you start creating digital records, you must: authorise your software; check your accounting period in your software.”

Step 1: find the service in your HMRC account

Sole traders and landlords reach Making Tax Digital for Income Tax through their existing HMRC online account. Sign in with the details you use for Self Assessment, then select "Making Tax Digital for Income Tax".

If it does not appear, GOV.UK says you can add it yourself:

1. Sign in to your HMRC online account.
2. Select "Add a tax to your account".
3. Select Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.
4. Answer the security questions.

Once you are in, the account shows what HMRC expects of you. GOV.UK lists what you can do there, including:

• check quarterly update and tax return due dates, and see your reporting obligations for each tax year;
• view an estimate of your tax bill, check what you owe and make a payment;
• view your sole trader and property business details, add a new business, or tell HMRC one has stopped;
• adjust a payment on account;
• view and appeal penalty points and penalties;
• opt out, if you are using the service voluntarily.

Check the business details first. If a business is missing or one you closed is still there, fix it before you send anything, because each update is sent against a specific business.

Step 2: connect your software

GOV.UK says that before you start creating digital records you must authorise your software. For a sole trader or landlord the steps are:

1. Select the option to connect with HMRC in your compatible software.
2. Enter the user ID and password you used when you signed up for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.
3. Pass the identity check by entering personal information and details from your identity documents, if you need to.
4. Give permission for your software to connect with HMRC.

You repeat these steps every 18 months, but you will not need to pass the identity check again; your software should remind you. If an accountant keeps your records, they connect their software with their firm's agent services account instead.

Step 3: check your update periods

The second thing GOV.UK says to do before creating records is check your accounting period in your software. This decides whether you use standard or calendar update periods.

Software defaults to standard periods, which follow the tax year. If your accounting period runs from 1 April to 31 March, select calendar update periods for each source of income in your software before your first quarterly update. GOV.UK is firm that you cannot change your update periods for a tax year after you have sent a quarterly update. HMRC's newsletter to software developers in September 2026 added a practical warning: after changing the type, wait until the change is fully reflected in your software before submitting, because submitting too soon can put an update against the wrong period. Standard versus calendar quarters explains which suits you.

Step 4: build your digital records

A digital record is one transaction, with its date, amount and category, kept in compatible software or a spreadsheet connected to bridging software. If you signed up partway through the year, GOV.UK says to catch up by creating digital records from the start of the tax year; they are then included in your first quarterly update.

The fastest sources are your business bank statements, imported from the start of the tax year. If your bank only offers PDFs, a bank statement converter turns them into rows; receipts for cash spending can be turned into rows with a receipt to spreadsheet tool.

A bank feed alone is not always enough. GOV.UK says you may need to add detail such as the Self Assessment category, that some transactions may not appear in full in a bank feed and need creating separately, and that it is your responsibility to check your records are accurate before you send an update. Card readers and platforms that pay you net of fees are the common case: record the gross income and the fees separately.

The first year: the four updates and the tax return

• Update 1, by 7 August 20263 months
• Update 2, by 7 November 20266 months
• Update 3, by 7 February 20279 months
• Update 4, by 7 May 202712 months

Step 5: send your first quarterly update

Your software builds each update from your records and shows it to you to check before you send it. Each covers from the start of the tax year to the end of the update period, so correcting a record simply changes the next update's total; you do not resend earlier ones.

You can send an update any time from the end of its period up to the deadline, and up to 10 days before the period ends if you do not expect any more transactions in it. If you had no income or expenses in a period, GOV.UK says you must still send the update to tell HMRC. After sending, check your HMRC account shows the period as received.

If the first update's deadline has already passed, send it as soon as you can. In the 2026 to 2027 tax year there are no penalty points for late quarterly updates, but every update is still owed before your tax return. The guide to catching up a missed update covers the order to send them in, and 7 November 2026 is the next deadline.

If you keep your records in a spreadsheet

You do not have to move off a spreadsheet. GOV.UK describes two kinds of compatible software: products that create the digital records themselves, and bridging software that connects to records you already keep, such as a spreadsheet. With bridging software the spreadsheet stays your record, and the bridging product reads the totals from it and sends them to HMRC.

Three things to check if you go that way:

• The spreadsheet still needs every transaction. A digital record is each transaction with its date, amount and category, not a monthly total typed in by hand.
• One product per submission. You can use only one software product for each separate submission to HMRC, so the bridging tool that sends your updates is the one that sends all of them for that business.
• The tax return. GOV.UK says your software needs to let you add your other income and submit your tax return by 31 January. Check the bridging product does that, or plan which product will.

The HMRC software directory shows which products are bridging tools and which cover the tax return.

Mistakes to avoid in the first month

The first update is where most of the avoidable problems happen:

• Sending before checking the update periods. Once the first update of the year has gone, the period type is fixed for that year.
• Leaving personal spending in. Every transaction you have not marked as business or personal is a guess. Sort them before the first update.
• Importing the same statement twice. Duplicates inflate both income and expenses. Check the totals look like your bank account.
• Recording net platform payouts. Card readers, marketplaces and delivery apps pay you after fees. Record the gross income and the fees separately.
• Assuming the update has landed. Check your HMRC account shows the period as received after you send it.

Step 6: put the year in your diary

The same four deadlines repeat every year, for standard and calendar periods alike: 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. The tax return follows by 31 January, through the same software. Your payment dates do not change: payments on account, where they apply, are still due by 31 January and 31 July. The Making Tax Digital deadlines page lists every date with what it covers.

Getting help

For signing up or using the service, call Self Assessment general enquiries on 0300 200 3310, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm; HMRC's digital assistant can also help, with a transfer to webchat when advisers are available. Agents use their own line, 0300 200 3311. For problems with the software itself, go to your software provider: HMRC says it cannot answer technical questions about software. If something in the sign-up itself looks wrong, the sign-up problems guide covers the common cases.

TapTax is designed around these steps. It connects to HMRC with your Self Assessment sign-in, imports your bank statements from the start of the tax year and sorts them into HMRC categories, flags anything unreviewed or duplicated, shows each quarterly update for you to check before you file, and confirms when HMRC has received it. The glossary entry on digital records explains what counts as one, and quarterly update covers what each update contains.