Small business accountants in Fortune Green — from £65/mo, fixed.

Plenty of people incorporate too early because it "sounds established", then pay for accounts, confirmation statements and payroll they didn't need. The switch pays for itself at the right profit level — the trick is knowing yours.

MTD for Income Tax starts with the £50,000+ income group in April 2026, with lower bands following. Quarterly digital updates sound worse than they are — with software doing the bookkeeping, the quarters largely take care of themselves.

Selling online, freelancing on the side, renting out equipment — each can be a "trade" in HMRC's eyes once it's done with a profit motive. The good news: registering is straightforward, expenses become claimable, and done early it's a non-event.

The businesses that find January easy are the ones whose bookkeeping happened all year — automatically. Modern software matches bank transactions, files receipts photographed on a phone, and leaves nothing to reconstruct from memory in the new year.

Can't pay the bill by the deadline? File anyway. Filing and payment are penalised separately, and HMRC's Time to Pay arrangements can spread the bill — but only once the return is in. Not filing because you can't pay turns one problem into two.

The best salary-dividend mix moves with each year's thresholds and your other income. Setting it once in April — rather than guessing through the year — is one of the simplest pieces of planning a director can do.

The first hire brings PAYE registration, Real Time Information submissions every payday, workplace pension auto-enrolment and payslips that must be right. It's all completely manageable — as a monthly routine run by software, not a monthly crisis.

Most HMRC letters are routine — a statement, a code change, a reminder. The rule is simple: never ignore one, and never panic over one. Forwarded to your accountant the day it arrives, almost every letter is a five-minute job.