The sole trader accountant who keeps it simple.

Register for Self Assessment by 5 October after the end of the tax year you started trading. The online filing and payment deadline is 31 January following the 5 April tax year-end, so your 2025/26 return is due by 31 January 2027. If your bill is over £1,000, you will also make payments on account on 31 January and 31 July. We track all of these for you.

You pay Class 4 National Insurance at 6% on annual profits between the lower limit (around £12,570) and £50,270, then 2% on profits above that. Class 2 is £3.65 a week for 2026/27. If your profits are low, paying Class 2 voluntarily can still protect your State Pension entitlement, we will advise whether that is worth it for you.

Allowable business expenses reduce your taxable profit: business mileage at 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles (25p after), a use-of-home flat rate, stock, tools, software, professional fees and more. Alternatively, the £1,000 trading allowance covers everything if your costs are tiny. We compare methods and claim whichever leaves you better off.

VAT registration is compulsory once your taxable turnover passes £90,000 over any rolling 12-month period, or if you expect to exceed it in the next 30 days. Below that it is voluntary, and sometimes worthwhile, for example via the Flat Rate Scheme. We watch your turnover and tell you before you hit the threshold, so you never register late.

From 6 April 2026, sole traders with qualifying income over £50,000 must keep digital records and send HMRC quarterly updates through compatible software, plus a final year-end declaration. The threshold falls to £30,000 from April 2027 and £20,000 from April 2028. We get you on Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent or Sage and handle the quarterly filings.

It depends on your profit level, how much you draw, and your appetite for admin. Incorporating can save tax once profits are higher, but it adds Corporation Tax (19% up to £50,000, rising to 25% over £250,000 with marginal relief), payroll and Companies House filings. We model both for your actual numbers before you decide, no one-size-fits-all answer.

At Zmartly, fixed monthly pricing of £129, £250 or £499 depending on the support you need, on rolling monthly terms with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You get a named, qualified accountant and replies within 72 hours. No hourly billing and no surprise invoices.

There is no legal requirement to use one, and plenty of sole traders file their own Self Assessment, so the real question is whether it pays for itself. In practice most sole traders we take on were quietly overpaying, usually because nobody had told them what they could claim, or were losing evenings to admin they resented. A good accountant should save you more than the fee and hand those evenings back. If your affairs are genuinely simple, we will tell you that too.

Yes, and it is more common than people think, so there is no need to feel awkward about it. Miss the 31 January deadline and HMRC issues an automatic £100 penalty, with daily penalties and interest building the longer it is left. We can bring several years up to date at once, file what is outstanding, put forward a reasonable excuse appeal where there is a genuine one, and arrange a Time to Pay plan with HMRC if the bill needs spreading. The sooner we start, the more of the penalties we can usually contain.

You need to keep a record of everything you earned and everything you spent running the business, along with the invoices, receipts and bank statements that back them up. HMRC expects you to hold these for at least five years after the 31 January filing deadline they relate to. With Making Tax Digital for Income Tax arriving from April 2026, those records will also need to be kept digitally, so we get sole traders onto simple software now rather than leaving it as a last-minute scramble.

No. Unlike a limited company, a sole trader and the business are the same legal person, so you are not required to have a separate account. That said, we strongly recommend one. Keeping business money apart from personal spending makes your bookkeeping cleaner, your expense claims easier to prove, and your year-end far quicker, which usually means a lower bill from us and less risk if HMRC ever asks questions.

You register for Self Assessment with HMRC once your self-employed income passes the £1,000 trading allowance in a tax year. The deadline is 5 October following the end of the tax year you started trading, so if you began in the 2025/26 tax year you must register by 5 October 2026. You do it through a Government Gateway account at gov.uk, and missing the date can lead to penalties. If registering yourself feels like one hurdle too many, we do it for you as part of getting you set up.