Making Tax Digital with AI: Records You Can Check
Making Tax Digital for UK sole traders and landlords: label bank lines with free AI, check every total, quote HMRC. 8 lessons, first 2 lessons free.
The first quarterly updates under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax were due on 7 August 2026, and HMRC said in August that more than 436,000 sole traders and landlords had sent theirs; in July it had said that more than 864,000 were in scope. About 1,077,000 more join on 6 April 2027. A sponsored article on AccountingWEB, a site for accountants, summed up the first quarters: “The ten-minute submission sits on top of hours spent getting records into shape.”
This course teaches that work with a free chat assistant beside you. In Lesson 2 you label a month of invented bank lines as income, expense, leave out or ask with one numbered prompt, and check that every row came back and every total adds up. Then you scrub your own lines before pasting, settle expense questions from HMRC’s own guidance (quoted, never remembered), turn card-reader payouts and letting-agent statements into gross figures, and put your labels into your MTD software without breaking HMRC’s digital-link rule.
Every example is invented, every rule is quoted from HMRC’s pages or the tax bodies (LITRG, the ATT, the ICAEW) with the date we read it, and the questions HMRC’s pages don’t settle go to your accountant. If you’re new to using AI with private information, take AI Privacy 101 (first 2 lessons free) alongside it.
What You'll Learn
- Explain who must use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, from when, and what a quarterly update is
- Use one numbered prompt to label a month of bank lines as income, expense, leave out or ask, and check every row
- Apply a scrub-before-paste routine and your chat tool's data setting before any record goes in
- Evaluate expense questions against HMRC's own guidance, quoted, and send the rest to your accountant
- Analyze card-reader payouts and letting-agent statements into gross income and separate expenses, and check totals with SUMIF
- Create a monthly routine that ends in a checked quarterly update and a short note for your accountant
After This Course, You Can
What You'll Build
Course Syllabus
Prerequisites
- Access to one chat assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot) and a spreadsheet app such as Google Sheets or Excel. Free plans are enough: we ran four of the course's prompts (Lessons 2, 4, 5 and 7) in free, signed-out ChatGPT and Gemini, and Claude and Copilot ask you to sign in to a free account first
- Your own Making Tax Digital software or bridging software is useful but not needed: every exercise uses invented data
Who Is This For?
- Sole traders in Making Tax Digital for Income Tax since April 2026, or joining in April 2027
- Landlords who receive net rent from a letting agent and keep their own records
- Anyone who keeps MTD records in a spreadsheet with bridging software
- Bookkeepers and family members who keep the records for a sole trader or a landlord
Frequently Asked Questions
Can ChatGPT or Gemini do my Making Tax Digital for me?
No. Quarterly updates go to HMRC through compatible software, the kind listed on HMRC's software finder; a chat assistant is a general AI app. In this course it suggests a label for each numbered bank line, shows the rows behind its totals, and reads HMRC's pages with you, quoting them. You set the labels in your own records, and your MTD software adds up the totals and sends the update. HMRC requires a digital link when records pass between software products, and the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) says "Copying and pasting or manually retyping entries will not be allowed", so in this course no number travels from a chat into your records.
Who has to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?
Sole traders and landlords whose qualifying income (turnover from self-employment and property, before expenses) was over £50,000 on their 2024 to 2025 return have had to use it since 6 April 2026. Over £30,000 on the 2025 to 2026 return means 6 April 2027, and over £20,000 on the 2026 to 2027 return means 6 April 2028. Pay from a job, dividends and pensions don't count. Check your own case on GOV.UK.
Is it safe to paste my bank statement into a chatbot?
Not as it comes. Lesson 3 shows what to remove first (customers' and tenants' names, account numbers, your Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) and National Insurance number), how to keep a private original, and where each tool's training setting is. Every exercise in the course uses invented data.
Is this tax advice?
No. The course quotes HMRC's guidance as it stood on 12 November 2026 and says where the guidance doesn't settle a question. Those questions go to your accountant or HMRC.
Is this course free?
Lessons 1 and 2 are free with a free account. The rest of the course and the certificate come with Pro.
How long does it take?
Eight lessons; the course page shows the total time. Lesson 2 gives you a labelled, checked month of bank lines and a prompt you can reuse every month.
