What Our First MTD Quarter Actually Looked Like

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax went live in April, and on 7 August we filed our first ever quarterly submissions on behalf of our clients. Every single client’s return went in on time, including the ones whose data arrived on the very last day. We have already covered what MTD is, who it applies to and the deadlines you need to know about on our MTD service page, so we will not repeat any of that here.

This article is something different. It is an honest account of what actually happened on our side while we got several of our dental clients through their very first MTD quarter. Some of it went smoothly. Some of it did not. We think there is more value in telling you the truth about both than in pretending the first quarter of a brand new system was effortless.

A Quarter That Started Calm and Ended in a Crunch

The first few weeks were quiet, almost deceptively so. Our team sent out checklists and early follow up emails to clients, and everything felt under control.

Then the final month arrived, and the picture changed quickly. A large number of clients still had not provided their data. At the same time, we were still registering newly onboarded clients for MTD, which is its own multi step process involving registering each client with HMRC as their authorised agent and then connecting them to the right software or bridging software.

Almost every step of that registration process threw up a technical issue of some kind, and each one meant a call to a software support team or to HMRC directly. This carried on right up to the final week before the deadline. Despite all of it, the team processed everything that had been provided and filed on time.

When the Data Arrives Late, Everything Else Gets Squeezed

The single biggest theme from this quarter was simple: clients giving us their data too close to the deadline. This showed up differently depending on who we were working with. Our sole trader practice owner clients tend to carry the largest volume of records, so a late submission from this group put far more pressure on the team than a late submission from an associate with a simpler set of accounts. If you are an associate reading this, your own experience next quarter is likely to be considerably calmer than what we describe below, provided your records are in order.

Some specific patterns we saw:

• Several sole trader dental practice clients, who tend to have the largest volume of data to process, sent through their entire quarter’s worth of information just two to three days before filing was due.
• A number of clients still run business expenses through personal bank accounts rather than a dedicated business account, which takes considerably longer for our team to sort through and summarise.
• In some cases, bank feeds had not been enabled despite repeated reminder emails, which meant our team had to manually import transactions under real time pressure.
• A few clients only became reachable and responsive in the final three days before the deadline.
• One client in particular raised detailed queries about their income on the day of filing itself, having provided their data very late, and expected prompt answers while we were also trying to serve every other client due that same day.

Where we could not fully resolve every outstanding query in that final window, we submitted the return subject to the client’s approval and carried any unresolved items forward into the next quarter. Not ideal, but the alternative was missing the deadline altogether.

The Software Side of Things

Since this was the first live quarter for everyone involved, including HMRC itself, we expected some friction. Here is what we found, platform by platform.

• HMRC – HMRC’s own systems were slow to update client data, which caused some of our software to fail when trying to fetch information during the connection process. HMRC was not particularly quick to help resolve this either, and we ended up calling them multiple times about the same recurring issue.
• Xero – Xero performed well overall. We had a mapping issue on a couple of client accounts, but nothing that we expect to see again in future quarters.
• FreeAgent – FreeAgent follows a different bookkeeping workflow with noticeably more steps than Xero, which meant the submission process took roughly an hour per client rather than a few minutes. We have already raised this directly with FreeAgent’s account manager and are working with them on it.
• My Tax Digital – My Tax Digital, the bridging software we used for one client, had an issue recognising that client’s information correctly. As our first time using this particular tool, it took time to work out where the gaps were, and we expect this to be smoother in future quarters now that we understand it better.

None of this is a case of one platform being good and another being bad. It is simply what a genuinely new, first of its kind government reporting system looks like in practice, across several different pieces of software at once.

What Actually Surprised Us

If we are honest, the sheer volume of technical friction at every single stage was more than we expected. Registering clients with HMRC, connecting them to the right software and then working around each platform’s own quirks, all while trying to manage incoming client data, took far longer collectively than we had planned for.

The real challenge was not any one of these things on its own. It was late data, new client onboarding and technical issues all landing in the same few weeks at once.

The Team Behind the Numbers

Our team worked well beyond their normal hours through the final month of the quarter. Part of what made it so intense was that almost every client’s data arrived in the same short window rather than being spread out, so the workload landed as one large wave instead of a steady flow. For our sole trader practice clients especially, a full quarter of data is a considerable amount to process in a matter of days.

There was no single dramatic near miss we can point to. It was simply the accumulated pressure, several clients, several technical issues and a lot of late data, all at once, that made the final stretch genuinely demanding for everyone involved.

What We Are Changing Before the Next Deadline

We do not intend to run through another quarter the same way, so here is what changes before the 7 November deadline:

• Client Relationship Managers will call clients at the very start of each quarter, not the end, to explain why early data matters and what late submission actually costs in terms of accuracy and our ability to resolve queries properly.
• We will chase and review missing data as it should arrive each month, rather than letting it build up until deadline week.
• We are introducing a clear cutoff date for each quarter, after which a late client’s submission will simply move into the next quarter rather than being rushed.
• We are working directly with software providers wherever a workflow is proving more time consuming than it needs to be.

What This Means for You

Whether you file through us or manage things yourself, a few lessons from this quarter apply to every dentist now working under MTD.

• Send your data monthly rather than saving it for the quarter end. It is a genuinely different rhythm from the old annual Self Assessment habit, and it matters far more now.
• If you are still running expenses through a personal account, this is the moment to open a dedicated business account. It will save you and your accountant real time, every single quarter.
• Enable your bank feeds properly and early. A five minute setup task now avoids a manual, error prone scramble later.
• Respond to queries quickly. Under the old annual system, a slow reply cost a few days. Under quarterly filing, it can cost your entire submission window.

If any of this sounds familiar, or you want a clearer picture of the deadlines and thresholds involved, our MTD service page covers the full framework. Book a free, no-obligation call directly with our MTD team member whose work matches what you need.

A Final Word

We will be honest, our first MTD quarter was harder in places than we expected, and we do not think we are alone in that. What we are proud of is that the team got every client’s return filed on time, even the ones that arrived at the last possible moment. But “just about managing” is not good enough as a long term approach, and it is not what we want for you as our clients either.

The changes above are not just good intentions. They are what we are putting in place before the next deadline arrives, and we will keep being this honest about how it goes.

If your own first quarter felt like a scramble, or you are worried November will go the same way, get in touch with our team before the next deadline creeps up on you.