London, 13 May 2026 – Sage (FTSE: SGE), the leader in accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for small and medium-sized businesses, today announced the next phase of its Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax Agent, helping UK accountants get ahead of the biggest shift in tax reporting compliance in a generation.
Since April 2026, practices that once filed annually have needed to coordinate quarterly submissions across every eligible client in their portfolio. For many practices, it has meant fundamentally rethinking how compliance work is resourced and run.
With the latest updates to the MTD for Income Tax Agent, accountants can automatically identify eligible sole trader clients, create quarterly reporting jobs, surface data checks to support review before submission, and guide the workflow within a single hub in Sage for Accountants. The update also introduces matching of HMRC income sources to client records using National Insurance numbers, helping practices confidently identify which sole traders are in scope for quarterly reporting.
“Preparing for quarterly reporting was already going to mean building new task lists and workflows across the practice, so having the MTD Agent automatically prepare much of that work for us saves a huge amount of time,” said Gary Beeby, of Beeby-England. “Instead of starting from scratch, we can focus on reviewing the work and refining it for our clients. It’s going to be a huge time saver and means we can spend less time managing admin and more time supporting clients.”
AI built for regulated workflows
Sage's AI is built around confidence, accountability and control, principles that matter most in regulated workflows where the consequences of errors extend beyond inefficiency. The MTD for Income Tax Agent puts those principles into practice, keeping workflows clearly structured, data visible and accountants in control of review and submission at every stage.
“Making Tax Digital represents one of the biggest operational changes UK practices have faced in years,” said Lisa Ewens, SVP Product, Small Business & Accountants, Sage. “The MTD for Income Tax Agent anticipates the work practices need to complete each quarter and prepares it in advance. It draws on Sage’s deep accounting expertise and trusted financial data to keep accountants firmly in control, handling the administration so they can focus on the judgement work that only they can do.”
The new capabilities are designed to reduce the manual effort associated with quarterly reporting, helping practices manage increased compliance demands while maintaining consistency across their client base.
The MTD for Income Tax Agent is available now within Sage for Accountants. Quarterly update jobs will begin from around June 2026, ahead of the first submission deadline in August.
Find out more about the MTD Agent
About Sage
Sage exists to knock down barriers so everyone can thrive, starting with the millions of small and mid-sized businesses served by us, our partners and accountants. Customers trust our finance, HR and payroll software to make work and money flow. By digitalising business processes and relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, banks and governments, our AI-powered platform connects SMBs, removing friction and delivering insights. Knocking down barriers also means we use our time, technology and experience to tackle digital inequality, economic inequality and the climate crisis.