Hi Karl11
I also haven’t figured out exactly how to make a quarterly submission in Hammock. Although in the help files under tax Hammock explicitly state that The landlord/accountant can make the quarterly submissions to HMRC They include a tutorial video titled “The Tax Statement Explained.” It explains how to download the information needed to submit your yearly tax return. I am assuming that the quarterly submissions would be done in the same way by just capturing the info within the quarterly date range.
As for Portfolio, I was invited to help test it during the BETA stage. During this early stage of development they offered marketing on their own site as well as RM and Zoopla. I successfully used it to rent one of my properties in early 2023. When another property became available sometime last year they had abandoned the marketing service, which made me come to OR. They were suffering a lot of issues with bugs in the software and they stated that they wished to concentrate on getting the app performing better. There may have also been some issues with RM and Zoopla. Anyway, Portfolio have definitely lost out by arriving late to MTD.
I cant see the point in a system that does not link automatically to HMRC, otherwise we are all just going to be paying accountants another quarterly bill.
I agree Portfolio wasn’t upto scratch when first launch, and I discounted it straight the way during initial testing. I assume things may have been improved, and am prepared to give it a further chance, once the new finance module is live.
Portfolio is the landlord associations property management software which is currently free to members although it is not compliant at the moment with MTD.
Thanks for sharing that! I took a quick look at My Tax Digital, and it seems pretty easy to use. If it’s like working with numbers, I’ll take it. Hopefully, they won’t add a fee when Self Assessment starts…
You can join the waiting list for OpenRent’s Making Tax Digital software here:
We’re still early on in the build, so any thoughts and feedback into what you’d like included is welcome! Naturally, it will meet all the basic requirements of MTD by default and work seamlessly with OpenRent’s existing services.
I’ve been looking into this, there are loads of different software solutions and I suspect most are likely to be ok.
The more important thing is the automated bank feed that will need to integrate with whatever software you use. If you don’t have an integrated bank then you will have to re-key everything into the software, which will be really painful.
The issue is that very few personal accounts integrate with software, you normally need a business account. For example I put all my rental transactions through my Revolut account, but that does not do back feed integration unless you get a business account.
the trouble is that you may get turned down for a business account because the banks don’t always see landlords as businesses - this happened to me.
so I now need to find a new bank account that has integrations to software!
The government really should have spoken to the banks first to make sure that they will provide accounts to landlords.
I see that Tide business plus at £12.99 a month has a free! MTD solution, but there are loads of others.
I saw one post where someone advised everyone to set up a bank account ahead of this just for your rent stuff - my advice is make sure it’s a sole trader account that has bank feed integration to MTD software.
Up to now, everyone without an accountant has had to do this manually in some form, either online or on paper. This has meant some form of record keeping up to this point. Why should that change under MTD?
For example, I’ve never found entering figures for five properties into my spreadsheets “really painful” so I don’t see why it will be any more painful to do so via MTD software.
From my albeit limited perspective, I think integrating a bank account with MTD may well be a false ecomony. You’re still going to have to go over every payment to make sure that it falls under the right category anyway. You’re going to have to be very strict with the account to make sure everything goes through it that needs to and nothing that doesn’t. You’re going to have to manually enter in things like mileage. You’re going to have to keep a careful eye on what qualifies as a capital expense and what doesn’t. Integrating a bank account doesn’t appear to be a fire and forget solution.
Currently I don’t enter anything manually int my spreadsheet. I download my bank statements and sum all the rents up and all the mortgage payments and simply enter that into the self assessment once a year.
And I have no need for an accountant as its very simple.
Now you have to do that every quarter into the software, which you could do manually. However if you have an integrated bank feed then all the transactions will get added in for you and you only have to press a few keys and submit every quarter.
tatemono - you are free to do it your way, but I will definitely get a sole trader bank account linked to freeAgent or similar software and it will all get automated.
just because you’re entering it into MTD software instead of into self-assessment?
You have no need of an accountant because “it’s very simple” and yet you’re happy to pay out £100 a year for freeAgent? I suppose at least that’s an allowable expense.
Well, you have to teach the software which transactions are which and then check that it is putting the calculations where they should go. That’s going to take some monitoring. As I said, it’s not fire and forget.
That’s awfully generous of you.
I’d suggest you don’t do that. It’s nearly double the price of a freeAgent Landlord account which is likely to serve your needs better.
I currently also have b2ls in a Ltd company, my accountant provides me with FreeAgent software which has an automated bank feed. So every now and again I simply go into the software and categorise each transaction (the system learns so for most I just accept what it has suggested) it takes 5 mins max. That is literally all that I do - my accountant does the rest.
So now back to the properties that are not in a ltd company.
I will do something very similar as I said earlier and then everything will be automated and categorised in the system. All I will need to do is categorise the bank transactions, which is very easy and takes no time. Then click submit every quarter.
Tatamono - you seem worried about the cost (quite rightly)
I’ve looked into this and there are a number of free options
Zempler bank is free and also clear book’s software is free.
An alternative is Mettle bank or NatWest that are also free (you do pay a bit for transactions but it’s not much a month) and both of those include FreeAgent free of charge.
I’m still looking into it, and there are other completely free options.
I’m just trying to be helpful to anyone reading, clearly it won’t be for everyone.
Sorry one more point Mettle bank and NatWest might decline landlords as they seem to want Ltd companies - they don’t say really.
I think I’ll go for Zempler bank as they have a sole trade account aimed at landlords, also they have an arrangement with Coconut software (free for 2 years) which sounds very easy to use for MTD
I suppose at least that’s an allowable expense.