Accounting for your Self Assessment tax payment in the app helps keep your personal and business records perfectly accurate. Whether you manage your own bookkeeping manually or collaborate with a professional adviser, recording your tax payments correctly ensures your financial reports and balance sheets stay fully balanced. This guide walks you through both methods to keep your accounts tidy and compliant. 📊
Option 1: Managing your tax bookkeeping yourself
If you handle your own bookkeeping without an accountant, you can log your tax by matching a manual bill against your final HMRC payment. Follow these steps:
Calculate the total tax amount you need to pay to HMRC for the relevant tax year.
Create a new bill in the app for that specific amount, setting the bill date to the very last day of that tax year (for example, 5 April).
Assign the bill to the Tax cost category.
Make your tax payment directly to HMRC from your business account, and categorise that outgoing transaction as Tax liability.
Match the completed HMRC payment to the manual bill you created in step 2 to close the balance. ✅
Option 2: Working with an accountant
If you have already given your professional accountant secure, view-only access to your data, they can handle the technical journal entries for you:
Your accountant will calculate your precise tax liability based on your recorded transactions.
They will post an accounting journal in the system dated to the end of the tax year to debit your Tax cost and credit your Tax liability.
Once you make the actual payment to HMRC from your business account, you simply need to categorise the outgoing transaction as Tax liability to balance your books perfectly. 💼
If you need to connect your adviser to your account so they can manage this for you, you can easily review our guide on how to give your accountant secure access. 🤝