Can I still use spreadsheets for Making Tax Digital?

Yes, you can keep using spreadsheets, but the spreadsheet on its own cannot talk to HMRC. You need bridging software digitally linked to it, and retyping or copying figures across breaks the rules.

Yes. If you keep your income and expenses in a spreadsheet, you can carry on doing that under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. This surprises a lot of people, because the phrase "digital records" sounds like it means an accounting package.

What you cannot do is stop there. A spreadsheet cannot send anything to HMRC by itself. You also need a piece of compatible software that connects to your spreadsheet and makes the submissions for you. HMRC calls this "software that connects to your records", and it is sometimes called bridging software.

The catch is how the two are joined together. The connection has to be a digital link. If you read a figure off your spreadsheet and type it into the other software, or copy and paste it across, you have broken the rule.

What is bridging software?

HMRC splits compatible software into two types.

The first type creates digital records. You enter income and expenses directly into it, or it imports transactions from your business bank account, or it scans your receipts and invoices. These products usually do everything, so they let you send quarterly updates and submit your tax return.

The second type connects to records you already keep somewhere else, such as a spreadsheet or another accounting tool. This is bridging software. HMRC's example is exactly the situation you are in: if you use spreadsheets to record income and expenses, bridging software can connect to them and make your submissions to HMRC.

Some bridging products can send quarterly updates and submit your tax return. Not all of them do both, so check before you commit.

What counts as a digital link?

A digital link is a transfer of data that happens without you retyping or manually moving it. HMRC lists these as acceptable ways to digitally link your records:

linked cells in spreadsheets, for example a formula in one sheet that mirrors the value in a cell in another sheet
emailing a spreadsheet containing digital records, so the information can be imported into another software product
putting the digital records on a portable device such as a pen drive or memory stick and physically handing it to someone who imports the data into their software
XML and CSV importing and exporting, and downloading and uploading files
an automated data transfer
an application programming interface (API) transfer

That list is more generous than most people expect. Exporting a CSV from your spreadsheet and importing it into your bridging software counts. So does putting the file on a memory stick and handing it to your bookkeeper to import.

There are things you do not have to digitally link. You do not need to link records of income that is not self-employment or property income, such as dividends or savings. You do not need to link software that is not used to create those records, such as a booking system or a till. And if you use one product to keep your records and send quarterly updates and a separate product only to submit your tax return, those two do not need a digital link, because the second one gets the data directly from HMRC. If you jointly let a property, you do not need to link your records to the other landlord's.

Why copying and pasting breaks the rules

HMRC is explicit about this. Once you have created a digital record and it has been sent to HMRC in a quarterly update, you must not manually move that record within your record-keeping software or to other software. In particular, you must not:

copy the information by writing it out in another cell or in other software
use cut and paste, or copy and paste, to move records

The reason is the audit trail. The point of a digital link is that the number HMRC receives is provably the same number you originally recorded. The moment a human retypes it, that guarantee is gone and a typo can travel all the way through to your tax position without anything catching it.

In practice this means the join between your spreadsheet and your bridging software should be set up once, as a link or an export and import, and then left to do its job. Do not build a habit of eyeballing the quarterly totals and typing them into a submission screen.

HMRC says you should set up the digital link when you set up the compatible software, or at the latest before you send a quarterly update or submit your tax return.

What your spreadsheet needs to contain

Every digital record you create needs three things:

the amount
the date the income was received or the expense was incurred
the category

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax uses the same categories of income and expenses as Self Assessment, so the categories themselves are not new to you. There is more detail in what digital records do I need to keep.

There is a concession that helps spreadsheet users. You can categorise your records in less detail for a tax year if your turnover from a source of self-employment is less than £90,000, or your total UK property turnover is less than £90,000, or you have foreign income. If you are a sole trader using this, you only need to record whether each transaction is income or an expense. If you are a landlord with UK residential property income, you have to go one step further and record, for each expense, whether it is a restricted finance cost.

If you have more than one source of self-employment or UK property income, you can only categorise both in less detail if each source is below the threshold.

Be careful with that threshold. If your turnover for an income source reaches £90,000, you have to categorise all of that source's records in full, from the beginning of the current tax year and in the following tax year, before you can send a quarterly update. Until you do, you will not be able to send quarterly updates or submit your tax return. If you are not sure whether you will get there, categorise in full from the start.

You also need to keep your digital records for at least 5 years after the 31 January submission deadline for that tax year. That is the same length of time you already have to keep records for Self Assessment.

Spreadsheet and bridging software, or one product?

Both are allowed. The trade-off is roughly this.

	Spreadsheet plus bridging software	One software product
Where your records live	In the spreadsheet you already use	In the software itself
Digital links	You have to set one up between the spreadsheet and the software, and keep it working	None needed, if the single product does everything
Bank feeds and receipt scanning	Not what bridging software does, it reads records you keep elsewhere	Available in products that create digital records
Submissions	Some bridging products send quarterly updates and submit your tax return, some do not	These products usually do both

On cost, HMRC says free products are available for people with simple tax affairs, but they may come with limits, for example on the number of transactions.

If your bookkeeping is simple and your spreadsheet already works, bridging is a reasonable choice. The trade-off is that the digital link is yours to set up and keep working every quarter.

You can mix products, within limits

You can use more than one software product, but you can only use one product for each separate submission you make to HMRC. So you cannot send your property quarterly update through two different products. You can, though, use one product for creating records and sending quarterly updates and a different one for submitting your tax return. You can also use different products for different businesses, for example if you are a builder and a landlord.

This service is one of the products in that picture. It sends in-year quarterly updates for self-employment and UK property. It does not handle the end-of-year step where you add your other income and submit your tax return, known as the final declaration, so if you use it you will need a second product for that.

Finding software that fits

HMRC has a tool that gives you a personalised list of compatible products. It asks about your income sources, any other income you need to report on your tax return, your accounting period, and whether you want to create new digital records or connect to existing ones. That last question is the one that filters for bridging software.

Everything on the list has been through HMRC's recognition process. HMRC does not recommend any particular product or provider.

When this applies to you

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is arriving in stages, based on your qualifying income.

Tax return it is based on	Qualifying income	You must start from
2024 to 2025	More than £50,000	6 April 2026
2025 to 2026	More than £30,000	6 April 2027
2026 to 2027	More than £20,000	6 April 2028

Qualifying income is your total turnover from self-employment and property income, before expenses, taken from the tax return you submitted in the previous tax year. See what counts as qualifying income and do I need to use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

If the rules already apply to you, your spreadsheet is fine. Your next job is picking the bridging software that sits on top of it and getting the link set up before your next quarterly update deadline.

Last reviewed 25 July 2026. This is general information about how Making Tax Digital works, not tax advice. We are not accountants. If your situation is complicated, speak to one, or check the guidance on GOV.UK.