Self Assessment made easy with Tide Accounting

Becoming self-employed doesn’t just give you the chance to spend time doing what you love, but you get to become an expert in all areas of running a business. From sales to stock control, marketing to budgeting, as a business owner, you have oversight of everything. And this includes accounting matters too. Of course, you can choose to pay an accounting professional to manage your tax affairs. After all, the stakes can be high when it comes to self-assessment and you could be liable for penalties if you get your calculations wrong.

But, get ready for an accounting revolution – Tide Accounting is here! Our latest feature will streamline your finance admin by making your tax and accounting calculations a breeze.

In this post, we’ll give you the lowdown on how Tide Accounting works, what new features are coming when, and why it’s great for small businesses.

Table of contents

• What is Tide Accounting?
• How will Tide Accounting help those who work for themselves?
• A recap of cash accounting
• New product features
• How much does Tide Accounting cost?

What is Tide Accounting?

As part of our mission to support those who work for themselves, we’ve developed Tide Accounting to save small businesses even more time with their finance admin.

Designed specifically with the needs of the self-employed in mind, Tide Accounting is an end-to-end accounting and tax solution with the aim of making both accounting and tax simple.

Not only will it be able to support a range of compliance tasks, such as Self-Assessment tax returns to HMRC, it will also prove invaluable by providing real-time updates and insights on your business tax and accounting affairs. Read our small business tips post to learn more about how Self Assessment works.

How will Tide Accounting help those who work for themselves?

In collaboration with our accounting partner, Sage, we’ve developed Tide Accounting to give small businesses real-time insights to save them time with many of their compliance tasks.

Launching with Self Assessment, we also plan to deliver support for a host of other filing deadlines, including VAT and Corporation Tax, as well as the filing of company accounts. Check out our guide to small business tax to learn more about the tax requirements of small businesses.

Better still, because Tide Accounting has been designed specifically around the needs of small businesses, you don’t need to be a qualified accountant to be able to make full use of the tool. It aims to make complex accounting topics easy to understand and accessible for those who aren’t accounting specialists.

So, as well as saving you time with your finance admin, it can potentially save you money too by reducing the need to engage professional accounting services to help with your tax affairs. However, if you still prefer to use an accountant to help you take care of the numbers when it comes to tax, then they will find Tide Accounting a breeze too while providing you with the insights you need to be on top of your business.

Extra features will be added throughout this year as Tide Accounting is fully introduced.  Our first release will be available on Tide on the web to sole traders who are not VAT registered and currently use the cash accounting method to run their businesses. Subsequent releases will cater to all accounting bases, including accrual accounting.

A recap of cash accounting

Often referred to as the simplest form of accounting, cash accounting is the practice of recording revenue when cash has been received and recording expenses in the period when payments are made. This form of accounting is often favoured by sole traders and small businesses, particularly those that hold no stock, due to its relatively straightforward principles.

Cash accounting differs from the accrual accounting method, which records revenue and expenses when they are incurred, rather than when cash is actually paid out or received.

New product features

The first features of Tide Accounting have been built to help sole traders with the preparation of Self Assessment tax returns. In parallel with Tide Accounting, we have also introduced new accounting categories that will enable you to tag your income and expenditure with labels that align perfectly with the fields on the SA103F Self Assessment form.

Tide Accounting will not only provide you with an estimate of your Self Assessment liabilities thanks to the real-time update feature, but it will also enable you to identify any transactions you may have made that haven’t automatically been included within this estimate.

You will also be able to add them to your Self Assessment estimate manually and label them with the appropriate accounting categories. This will ensure that your Self Assessment figures are accurate, as well as save you time on calculating your liabilities ahead of filing your tax return.

Furthermore, you will soon be able to use Tide Accounting to submit your VAT return through Making Tax Digital.

How much does Tide Accounting cost?

Tide Accounting costs £9.99 +VAT per month. You will not be charged until 5 Jan 2024. From 6 Jan 2024, you will be charged a fee of £9.99 +VAT per month unless you cancel before 5 Jan 2024. From 6 Jan 2024, the fee will be billed in the first week of each calendar month. You can terminate at any time by month’s end – you will be charged subscription fees in full for the month in which you cancel your subscription. There will be no pro-rata refund of subscription fees in case of early cancellation.