APARI software will help you get to grips with MTD
Accounting software, record keeping software and landlord property software, even excel spreadsheets and paper cashbooks- you might have used one of, or even a combination of these in the past to get a full understanding of your financial position. And even then, it’s likely that you then use another tool to send your tax bill to HMRC. But soon that will be a thing of the past. Our Making Tax Digital Software will combine all of these in one easy to use software. One software tool to rule them all!
Article Overview
From 2026 HMRC’s MTD regulations require you to use Making Tax Digital for submitting your tax return
Making Tax Digital software provides you with one tool to file your tax position under HMRC’s new MTD ruling
Submitting your tax position through Making Tax Digital software is easier, less time intensive and makes it easier for taxpayers to get their tax right
The sooner you start using Making Tax Digital software, the easier the transition to MTD will be
What is Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?
Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax is the new way to approach your tax affairs, moving from a single annual tax return, to more frequent submissions.
To comply with MTD for Income Tax, from April 2026 landlords, the self-employed and tradespeople, with a combined income of over £50,000 will need to use Making Tax Digital software to keep digital records of business income and expenses and submit a summary every quarter. This replaces the need for a Self Assessment tax return.
At the end of the year, you will need to submit any other income - for example, employment income - and finalise all of the information through the annual summary. If you choose a good Making Tax Digital software, it will be able to do all of this for you.
Click here for more information about Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.
What is Making Tax Digital software?
Making Tax Digital software provides you with all the features to file your taxes under HMRC’s Making Tax Digital system. It will enable you to meet the digital record keeping obligation, allow you to allocate transactions and some even connect with your bank account to make it even more easy to file your tax return under HMRC’s Making Tax Digital initiative.
Our Making Tax Digital software for example, helps you to keep your receipts and documents in one place. Simply take a picture of your receipt and attach it to the appropriate transaction with our snap & store feature. APARI also sorts your transactions into the right places for you. You can then send your tax return straight to HMRC, either through MTD or as a normal, SA100, annual tax return - that’s up to you!
We also made sure our Making Tax Digital software is as secure as possible. Read more about how secure our software is here.
Why do I need Making Tax Digital Software?
Even if you don’t personally use a tax software, your accountant probably does. It is almost certain that they will be using their agent only software package to help calculate your tax position and then submitting this to HMRC. With Making Tax Digital this will not just be something that you or your accountant “might” do, but will be a must with digital record keeping becoming a legal requirement for MTD eligible taxpayers by 2026.
So better get accustomed to the Making Tax Digital software of your choice rather sooner than later!
This can sound like a daunting task to anyone who has never used software! But signing up to Making Tax Digital software early (especially when you can start for free) can be the key to a simple and pain free transition to MTD.
How will Making Tax Digital software work?
Making Tax Digital software will be your main tool for submitting your tax return from 2024. The process is relatively simple - you upload tax relevant transactions into your chosen software, allocate them to the correct MTD compliant category, then send quarterly updates to HMRC via the software.
While we can’t tell you how other Making Tax Digital software is working, here are the basics how our software works:
The new Making Tax Digital rules require landlords and the self-employed to submit their income and expenditure directly to HMRC via compatible tax software, such as APARI.
In addition to this information about your business or rental properties, you still need to submit all of the other information that currently goes into your annual Self Assessment Tax Return, such as employment income, pension income, savings interest, charitable giving etc.
Each piece of information needs to be correctly integrated into HMRC’s systems, so it is recorded in the right place. Each piece of information, therefore, needs its own connector to link HMRC’s systems with Making Tax Digital software. These connectors are known as APIs and HMRC is in the process of building them, one by one. When they are released, tax software developers, like APARI, integrate them into our systems in order to make life easier for you to submit everything you need to.
With our Making Tax Digital Software you are able to upload your CSV bank statements directly to the software, and allocate your business transactions directly to MTD approved categories. You also have the ability to manually upload any cash or missed transactions. This allocation of transactions is the minimum requirement for Making Tax Digital. As long as you upload these transactions and submit at least once a quarter, you are MTD compliant.
Head here to a more in depth tutorial of our Making Tax Digital software.
What are the benefits of using Making Tax Digital software?
Probably the biggest benefit of using Making Tax Digital software is that you only need one tool to file your tax position under HMRC’s new MTD system. It combines your record keeping and allocating of transactions, meaning that sending your tax return to HMRC by using Making Tax Digital software, even if it’s five times a year, will be easy peasy.
If you were to manually input your data into your own spreadsheet, then doing this quarterly could take hours (depending on the number of transactions) - and let's face it - no one wants to spend more time than necessary doing their tax return! Making Tax Digital software can take this time burden away from you. With the introduction of AI and machine learning into the APARI Making Tax Digital software, the allocation of income and expenditure into their relevant categories, is set to become even easier.
Using Making Tax Digital software will also reduce the risks of mistakes on your tax return. Thanks to digital recordkeeping and calculation of your taxes, Making Tax Digital software makes it easier for taxpayers to get their tax right.
When you are ready to transition to MTD ‒ in 2026 or earlier if you choose ‒ you’ll already be used to digital record keeping and can instantly switch over from your annual tax return to MTD-compatible tax filing. A smooth and easy transition rather than a complicated, confusing, messy and expensive process.
What is the best Making Tax Digital software?
There are a few Making Tax Digital software providers on the market, with more to come as we get closer to the MTD launch in 2026. So how do you decide which Making Tax Digital Software is right for you? Well, think of it like this:
Your kids ask you to watch the Lion King tonight. What version of the movie will you show them? The supposedly hip and cool CGI-release from 2019? The sequel? No! You’d obviously go for the 1994 all time classic, which won multiple Oscars and set standards in animation and film music.
Whilst we can’t tell you what the best Making Tax Digital software is, going with classic standard setters is our problem free, philosophy. Hakuna Matata!
Want to know more about MTD? We created the Ultimate Guide to Making Tax Digital for YOU!