MTD turned one annual job into five. Price it that way.
FigsFlow is practice management software for firms taking on MTD Income Tax clients. Scope the quarterly work, price it as a recurring engagement rather than a one-off return, get the letter signed, and have the four updates and the Final Declaration land as jobs on a schedule. The filing itself stays in your MTD-compatible software — FigsFlow runs the engagement around it.
Partner or principal, the pricing and the capacity question are below. Practice manager, start with the recurring job cycle.
The tour runs in your browser. No form until you want one.
- Qualifying incomeOver £50,000 · 2024/25
- Mandated from6 April 2026
- EngagementRecurring · not annual
- Jobs this year4 updates + 1 declaration
- Next due07/11/2026 · Q2
scoped once, not re-quoted every quarter
Each service brings its own scope wording and its own recurrence. Add one and the engagement is re-scoped and re-priced from the same approved set.
The fee stayed annual. The work went quarterly.
A client who used to be one tax return in January is now four quarterly updates and a Final Declaration. If the engagement letter still describes an annual return and the fee still reflects one, the extra work is being absorbed — quietly, by whoever picks the file up.
Still running MTD clients this way?
A spreadsheet, a reminder, and somebody's memory.
- 01Keep a list of who is in scope this year
- 02Re-quote the extra work client by client
- 03Reissue letters that still say annual return
- 04Diarise four deadlines per client, by hand
- 05Chase records four times instead of once
Then Phase 2 lands in April 2027, the threshold drops to £30,000, and the list gets substantially longer.
Three steps, then it repeats itself
Scoped once as a recurring engagement, not re-quoted every quarter.
- 01Select the MTD services on the engagement
- 02The recurring fee calculates
- 03The client signs
The four updates and the Final Declaration become jobs on a schedule, with the record requests attached to each one.
What happens when the MTD engagement is signed?
A year of work appears. Not a reminder to create it later — the jobs, the dates and the record requests exist from the moment the client accepts.
Five jobs are created, not one.
Four quarterly updates and the Final Declaration come off your service templates with their dates already on them, so the year is visible in your workflow rather than in someone's diary.
The record request repeats with the job.
The information you need from the client is attached to each quarter, so chasing is a scheduled step rather than four separate acts of remembering.
The recurring fee is fixed.
The figure the client accepted is frozen against the engagement, so the quarterly work is billed at the price it was scoped at rather than absorbed.
Capacity becomes visible.
Four deadlines per client across a book of MTD clients is a resourcing question. It shows up in your workflow before it shows up as a late night in February.
Quarterly work should be scheduled once, not remembered four times.
Qualifying income is gross, and it is combined
The threshold test is gross income from self-employment and property before expenses — not profit — and sole trade and rental income are added together. Employment, dividends and pension income are excluded. HMRC assesses it from the relevant Self Assessment return and writes to those who are in scope, but the obligation to check sits with the taxpayer and, in practice, with you.
Your MTD book grows twice more without you winning a client
Mandation arrives in stages, and each stage pulls a lower band of your existing client base into quarterly reporting. Knowing which of your clients arrives in April 2027 is a capacity question you can answer now rather than in March.
Marked items change by phase. What counts as qualifying income does not. Phase 3 reflects currently announced plans and should be re-checked before you rely on it.
FigsFlow does not file your quarterly updates
MTD attracts a lot of vague software claims, so here is the plain version. FigsFlow runs the engagement — scoping, pricing, the letter, AML, and the recurring jobs and deadlines. Submitting quarterly updates and the Final Declaration to HMRC happens in MTD-compatible software on HMRC's approved list. The two sit either side of each other; neither replaces the other.
Ask on a demo call about anything not listed here. Regulatory and capability statements should be re-verified and date-stamped before release.
Five deadlines per client, and they do not move
Quarterly updates fall on the 7th of the month after each quarter ends, and the Final Declaration follows on 31 January. The dates are fixed and identical for every client in scope, which is exactly why they belong in a workflow rather than a diary.
What this looks like at your size
Price the quarterly work properly the first time, so a busier year is a better-paid one rather than an absorbed one.
Everyone scopes MTD from the same service templates, so the fee does not depend on who took the call.
See the whole MTD book against capacity before Phase 2 adds the £30,000 band in April 2027.
Standardised MTD scope and fees across offices, with documents held in your own Microsoft tenant.
What the MTD engagement connects to
Quarterly reporting is one service line on the client record. Here is what sits either side of it.
HMRC deadlines
The quarterly and annual dates, tracked against the client rather than a wall planner.
See HMRC deadlines →AML and client due diligence
The check that has to complete before the firm acts for a new MTD client.
See AML and CDD →Companies House
For clients who also run a company alongside the sole trade or property income.
See Companies House →Plans and pricing
What recurring engagements and job scheduling cost across the plans.
See pricing →What practices ask about MTD and FigsFlow
No. FigsFlow is practice management software. It scopes, prices and evidences the MTD engagement and schedules the work, but quarterly updates and the Final Declaration are submitted through MTD-compatible software on HMRC's approved list.
Sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income is over the threshold for the relevant tax year. Mandation began on 6 April 2026 for those with qualifying income over £50,000, with £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028 under currently announced plans. Confirm the position on GOV.UK before advising a client.
Gross income from self-employment and property, before expenses, combined across all trades and properties. Employment income, dividends and pensions are excluded. Because it is gross rather than profit, clients you think of as small can sit above the threshold.
On the 7th of the month following the end of each quarter — 7 August, 7 November, 7 February and 7 May for the standard quarters. The Final Declaration is due by 31 January after the end of the tax year, so 31 January 2028 for 2026/27.
No. MTD changes how and how often income is reported, not when tax is paid. Payment dates of 31 January and 31 July are unchanged, and a quarterly update does not create a payment obligation.
Yes. MTD services are scoped on the engagement with their own recurrence, so the quarterly work is priced as a recurring engagement rather than re-quoted each quarter. The accepted figure is fixed against the engagement.
Clients moving into scope are re-scoped and issued a new version of the engagement letter from the same approved clause set, with the recurring jobs created on signature. The superseded version stays on the client record.
Bring your MTD client list to the demo
Thirty minutes with a practice specialist. We will scope and price one real MTD client on screen, create the year of jobs from the signature, and show you what Phase 2 does to your capacity in April 2027.
Before the engagement letter goes out, the client due diligence has to be complete. AML and client due diligence