How to complete your Self Assessment with Tide Accounting

If you're self-employed, you may have to complete your Self Assessment.

This annual process involves calculating your income and expenses, filing your tax return to HMRC, and paying your resulting tax bill.

There are a number of steps you'll need to take, but with Tide Accounting you can complete them with confidence.

Self Assessment made easy

Are you earning over £50,000 per year?

You’ll need to submit your tax updates on a quarterly basis, alongside a final tax return at the end of the tax year. Find out how with our MTD page.

Is your turnover below £50,000 per year?

Then you can complete your Self Assessment:

Understand your business transactions by using Tide Accounting to organise them in one place and categorise them correctly

File your tax return by using Tide Accounting to calculate your overall income and expenses

Pay your resulting tax bill, having used your Tide Accounting Tax Account to put money aside throughout the year

Key dates for completing your Self Assessment

Register for Self Assessment

5 October

File your online tax return

31 January

Pay the tax you owe

31 January

How to complete your Self Assessment

Step 1: Register with HMRC

If you’re filing for the first time, head to gov.uk to register for Self Assessment.

Watch the video provided by HMRC for in-depth information on how to complete this step and step 2.

Step 2: Set up a Government Gateway account

If you haven't already, you'll also need to set up a Government Gateway account by heading to gov.uk.

This allows you to securely log in to your tax account and file your Self Assessment online.

Step 3: Understand your income and expenses

Income is the money you've made through your business.

Expenses are money you've spent on the costs of running your business, such as work equipment, office rent or salaries.

By categorising your business transactions using the steps below, you can identify which transactions are income and which are expenses. We've created a guide to help you categorise your transactions here.

You can then provide this information to HMRC when you file your tax return, so that they can use it to calculate your allowable expenses and your overall tax bill.

Step 7: View your Self Assessment estimates

Tide Accounting lets you view a live estimate of your tax bill throughout the year, so you can plan ahead and avoid last minute surprises.

It also provides you with calculations of your income and expenses, broken down by categories so you can input the data directly into the HMRC form when filing your return.

These estimates are based on how your transactions have been categorised in Tide Accounting, so make sure you've added and categorised all of your transactions.

To view your Self Assessment estimates:

Tap Tide Accounting

Tap Self Assessment