Making Tax Digital for ITSA: Prepare your practice with an exclusive 4-Step Practice Success Plan

Need help preparing for Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Self Assessment (ITSA)?

We’ve got your back.

HMRC has flicked the switch with MTD for VAT, which is already in full swing.

The next stage is MTD for ITSA, which will start in April 2026 for sole traders and landlords with an income over £50,000, and in April 2027 for those with an income over £30,000.

MTD for ITSA, the most significant change since Self Assessment hit the UK in the 1990s, will impact millions of businesses like yours.

It demands a new approach as an accountancy or bookkeeping practice.

By signing up to Sage for Accountants, you’ll automatically receive an exclusive 4-Step Practice Success Plan, a masterclass programme presented by industry experts.

It’ll give you the skills and confidence to build and deliver a clear, confident and profitable plan for the practice and your clients, and help you be ready for MTD for ITSA.

What is MTD for ITSA and how can you turn it into an opportunity?

Those are two of the questions that our 4-step masterclass programme will answer.

MTD for ITSA means stripping out manual mistakes from the tax return process.

In turn, it means you can make your practice more efficient and strengthen customer relationships by boosting the quality of your work and offering more than just compliance support.

Because software and automation will do the boring bits, you‘ll have more time (and energy) to give your clients invaluable advice face-to-face—and that’s where the opportunity is.

Check out this ROI calculator to learn how automation can help you save time and money.

Today, you’re not competing with other accountants and bookkeepers around software products. You’re fighting around quality of service, relationship building, and expertise.

If clients want to make a big business decision, it’s your advice they’ll look for—and they could be willing to spend a premium for your time. You must create a plan to put the right strategy into place.

This is where our 4-step masterclass programme can help you.

What if your processes and systems aren’t ready for MTD for ITSA?

Time, money, stress. All good reasons to put off planning for MTD for ITSA.

Or are they?

After signing up to Sage for Accountants and unlocking the 4-Step Success Plan, you can access an exclusive series of masterclasses with supporting tools and resources.

It’ll help you build and deliver a clear, confident, and profitable plan for MTD that minimises disruption and risk, and maximises opportunities.

It will also help you to unify processes and systems to measure your success and gain efficiencies across the whole practice.

Prepare now for less stress later

Here’s what you’ve got to look forward to from the masterclasses:

• What MTD for ITSA means for your practice now and in the future
• How to manage the transition
• Exploring your potential to scale and grow
• How to overcome your barriers and concerns.

You’ll get expert tips on:

• Improving productivity, performance, and profitability
• Getting more value from digitalisation
• Realising your goals by getting organised
• Having a vision and setting the destination
• Creating a foolproof plan to cross the finishing line.

It all comes down to 4 steps for MTD for ITSA success

GoProposal founder James Ashford and a series of experts present our four Practice Success Plan masterclasses (plus an intro masterclass on what MTD for ITSA means for your practice) to prepare you for MTD for ITSA.

Here’s what they’ll cover:

1. Plan and Prepare—create an action plan.
2. Practice Readiness—examine your processes and workflow.
3. Client Readiness—create client behaviours for success.
4. Deliver and Succeed—maximise the positive impact and realise your goals.

We’ve designed the masterclasses to be a series of logical steps that help you to develop something unique to your practice.

After all, you and your clients have different abilities, inclinations, and attitudes towards financial admin.

What you can expect from the first masterclass

Our first Practice Success Plan masterclass, Plan and Prepare, is about MTD for ITSA planning.

You’ll get:

• Advice planning for the changes MTD for ITSA will bring
• Experts sharing how the proposed legislation impacts your practice and clients
• Tips on identifying opportunities.
• Advice on how to segment and prioritise your client base
• Tools to build a confident and profitable plan to navigate MTD for ITSA.

Have we convinced you?

Get ready to take control of MTD for ITSA and create your unique plan, so you can learn how to build a solid foundation before you dive into Practice Success Plan masterclasses 2, 3 and 4.

Find out more about the Sage for Accountants 4-Step Practice Success Plan and how to sign up at www.sage.com/en-gb/cp/sageforaccountants

Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2022 and has been updated for relevance.