Making Tax Digital, for trades.

What changes, who it hits, when it starts, and where Pherox fits.

What is changing.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment changes how self-employed people and landlords report their income to HMRC.

Instead of one annual Self Assessment return, those in scope:

  • Keep digital records of their income and expenses in MTD-compatible software
  • Send HMRC a quarterly update of those numbers
  • Make one final declaration at the end of the year, which replaces the old SA return

The mechanics: four quarterly updates plus one final declaration. That is the new cadence.

Source: HMRC, GOV.UK guidance on Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Facts as of June 2026.

Are you in scope.

Whether you are in scope depends on your qualifying income. That is gross income before expenses, not profit. It is counted as the combined total of your self-employment income and any property income in the same year.

The phased rollout, per HMRC:

  • Over £50,000 qualifying income: in scope from 6 April 2026
  • Over £30,000 qualifying income: in scope from 6 April 2027
  • Over £20,000 qualifying income: in scope from 6 April 2028

We do not adjudicate your status. Use HMRC’s own tool: check if you need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, on GOV.UK.

Facts as of June 2026.

Where Pherox fits.

Pherox is a quoting tool for sole traders in the trades. It sits upstream of your MTD records, not inside them.

The quotes and job records you build in Pherox come out as clean, structured, exportable digital data. That means a clean record per job: customer name, labour cost, materials cost, VAT if you are registered, total, date. The numbers move into your MTD-compatible accounting software, or across to your accountant, without re-keying from paper or a scattered spreadsheet. Pherox keeps the quoting side of your records clean.

That is the whole claim. Nothing more.

What Pherox is not.

To be plain:

  • Pherox is not accounting, bookkeeping, expenses, or tax software.
  • Pherox is not HMRC-recognised MTD software. It does not file, calculate, or submit anything to HMRC.
  • Pherox does not keep your statutory MTD digital records. Those are your income and expense records, held in MTD-compatible software you have chosen.

If you want a single tool to handle MTD end to end, Pherox is not it. Pick MTD-compatible software for that. Pherox keeps the quoting side tidy so the numbers you hand over are clean.

What to do next.

  1. Check your scope using HMRC’s tool on GOV.UK. Only you, and HMRC, can tell you whether you are in.
  2. Pick MTD-compatible software from HMRC’s published list of products that meet the technical requirements. The list is on GOV.UK.
  3. Speak to an accountant if anything above is uncertain. The quarterly cadence rewards setting it up properly once, rather than patching it later.

When the quoting side is the part that hurts, that is where Pherox helps. 14-day free trial, no card.

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