MTD for Income Tax is live. From 6 April 2026, every landlord and sole trader with a qualifying income above £50,000 must keep digital records and file quarterly updates to HMRC. That is approximately 700,000 taxpayers in the first wave. Most will not show up prepared. They will arrive in late July, days before the first quarterly deadline of 7 August. Some will arrive after it has passed.
Managing that volume without the right workflow means onboarding chaos, compliance gaps, and missed deadlines. FigsFlow and RentalBux solve that together: FigsFlow handles AML, onboarding, and engagement letters; RentalBux handles digital records, quarterly submissions, and the Final Declaration.
This article walks through exactly how the two platforms work, how they connect, and what a typical practice saves by running both.
What MTD Actually Demands from Your Practice
Before getting into the tools, here is a quick refresh on what MTD actually requires from your practice and your clients.
The Mandation Timeline
MTD ITSA is rolling out in three phases based on qualifying income, which means gross rents and gross turnover before any deductions.
Two details matter for planning. HMRC uses the CY-2 rule: mandation is assessed against the return filed two years before the mandation date. For the April 2026 cohort, that is the 2024/25 Self Assessment return. And once a taxpayer enters MTD, they stay in for a minimum of three consecutive tax years regardless of whether income subsequently drops below the threshold.
The practical consequence for practices is a ratchet effect: every year, more clients come in, fewer come out.
4 Deadlines a Year, Per Income Type, Per Client
Under MTD ITSA, each in-scope client requires four quarterly updates per income type per tax year, plus a Final Declaration. A landlord who also has self-employment income files eight quarterly updates per year, one set for property and one for self-employment, all through the same platform.
Now, run the numbers on 150 in-scope clients, and you get approximately 2,489 MTD compliance hours per year. That’s around 1.5 full-time equivalents, before a single onboarding task, client call, or advisory hour is counted.
How FigsFlow & RentalBux Cover the Full MTD Workflow
FigsFlow and RentalBux were built by the same team, out of a UK accountancy practice managing landlord and sole trader clients. They are separate platforms that work together as one end-to-end workflow. FigsFlow covers everything before the books are touched. RentalBux covers everything after.
Here is how the full workflow runs in practice.
Client Import is the bridge between the two platforms. Sign the engagement in FigsFlow, and the client record appears in RentalBux: contact details, properties, ownership splits, HMRC references. The bookkeeper picks up exactly where FigsFlow left off.
What FigsFlow & RentalBux Save Your Practice
At £60 per hour internal cost, that is roughly £11,400 to £15,600 recovered annually, before any reduction in AML tool costs or MTD software subscription savings from partner discounts.
The compliance picture is separate but equally important. Fragmented systems produce fragmented audit trails. FigsFlow retains all compliance documentation in one place for the full five-year period required under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017. RentalBux maintains timestamped approval records for every quarterly submission. A supervisor review or HMRC inspection has a single, complete record to inspect.
The FigsFlow-RentalBux Partner Programme
Every FigsFlow subscriber qualifies for the RentalBux Partner Programme automatically. You start at Bronze from your first two MTD clients. The tier you sit in depends on how many MTD clients your practice manages.
Revenue share on referrals starts at Silver, which takes just 10 MTD clients. CPD certifications covering MTD Fundamentals and Advanced Property Accounting are free across all tiers. Starting at Bronze requires just two MTD clients and activates automatically with your FigsFlow subscription. The discounts, revenue share, and certifications increase as your client base grows.
How to Get Started
RentalBux offers a free trial with no credit card required. As a FigsFlow subscriber, Partner Programme status at Bronze tier is automatic from the first two MTD clients.
- Start a free RentalBux trial: app.rentalbux.com/register
- Book a demo: rentalbux.com/demo
- Email: info@rentalbux.com
- Phone: 020 4591 1941
FigsFlow offers a 30-day free trial. Plans start from £8 per month on an annual commitment.
- Start a free FigsFlow trial: app.figsflow.com/signup
- Book a demo: figsflow.com/book-demo
- Email: info@figsflow.com
- Phone: 020 4591 1950
Conclusion
The 7 August deadline will arrive. So will the clients who ignored every HMRC letter and assumed their accountant would sort it out.
Practices that are ready will onboard them in 15 minutes, run the AML check on the same platform, transfer the record into RentalBux automatically, and file before the deadline. Practices that are not ready will spend 2 hours and 40 minutes on each of those clients, across a backlog of dozens, with no central view of where any of them stand.
FigsFlow and RentalBux do not guarantee a smooth MTD transition. They remove the two biggest points of failure: the onboarding bottleneck and the gap between the front office and the compliance engine. One decision, made before July, determines whether the first quarterly cycle is controlled or chaotic.
