Introducing your (free) Self Assessment secret weapon
On behalf of Bright
If you find yourself dreading Self Assessment and ‘busy season’ year after year, you’re not alone. Perhaps you’ve promised yourself that this year will be the last time you do it like this – next year will be different. But you’re also going to take up jogging and eat more kale, right? Well, we can’t make you lace up your trainers, but we can introduce you to the combined power of Bright’s tax solution, BTCSoftware, and Bright’s practice management software, AccountancyManager.
Using automation, workflow management, a secure online portal with e-signing and integrations with HMRC, you can create a streamlined process that’s more efficient for you and your clients. And hey, maybe with all the hours you’ll save you can go for a run after all.
“We ‘did a January’ and I was nearly on my knees! Then this year, with AM, we didn’t work one weekend in January – it was actually quite painless.”
– Pippa Halfnight, Creative and Numbers
Step 1: Plan ahead and get started early
Whoever decided to make the deadline 31st of January has an interesting sense of humour. After Christmas, personal finances can be pretty stretched. The earlier you gather what you need and submit the tax return, the earlier your clients can pay up and get it out of the way. Picture this: December 2023 rolls around and you’re not dreading January at all.
Set your own target dates in AccountancyManager
Spread your Self Assessment Tax Returns out over the year by setting internal deadlines or ‘target dates’. This automatically adds tasks to your team’s to-do lists when the time is right and supports you in changing client behaviour.
“We don’t have this ‘panic thing’ at all. In fact, the 31st of January means nothing to us – we set up our own deadlines in AccountancyManager.”
– Khyam Chudhry, Fortuous Limited
Get a bird’s eye view with BTCSoftware
There’s a handy built-in report you can generate in BTCSoftware called ‘SA Income & Profit Data for Individuals’. This gives you a bird’s eye view of the income data for the individuals by tax year, as well as the total income for the taxpayer.
Step 2: Automatically gather information
The most time-consuming (and certainly the most irritating) part of Self Assessment is getting your clients to provide what you need. Thanks to a combination of integration and automation, Bright’s software solutions – AccountancyManager and BTCSoftware – make this easier than ever, both for you and your clients.
Create professional online forms
Instead of messing around with Word or Excel, give your clients an online form to fill in. Simply build your form in AccountancyManager (or adapt the one we’ve already created) and share it through the GDPR-compliant client portal.
Your client can complete the form entirely online – no need to download, print or scan. And no dodgy hand-writing for you to decipher. You’ll even get a notification when it’s complete.
“People get it on their mobile, click on the link, answer all our questions and it comes directly to us. It’s brilliant.”
– Anna Nikolovska, Digital Accounting Enterprises
Chase your clients – without lifting a finger
Leave all your record requests and reminders to AccountancyManager. Set up one Self Assessment email template and AccountancyManager will send it to each client at the right time. You can send a text too for faster responses.
Although the template is the same for each client, you can add over 500 different variables which pull in unique information to each individual client.
“Boom, boom, boom, before you know it every client [has] had a tailored email asking for what we need.”
– Ben Steele, Steele Financial
Pull data in from bookkeeping software and HMRC
BTCSoftware has two-way integrations with many bookkeeping providers such as Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent, so you can complete some parts of the tax return by populating the data automatically. Not only does this save time, it eliminates the risk of manual errors.
In addition, the integration between BTCSoftware and HMRC means you can automatically pull P60 information into the Self Assessment Tax Return (as long as HMRC has this information).
Step 3: Don’t work harder than you need to
Efficiency is important, but during busy season it’s essential. BTCSoftware is full of time-saving features to make completing your Self Assessment Tax Returns a faster, more streamlined process.
Process Partnership Tax Return data just once
In BTCSoftware, there’s an automatic link between Partners in the Individual Tax Return and Trust Tax Return (SA100 and SA900) and Partnership Tax Returns (SA800). This saves you from processing the same data twice.
Consolidate multiple UK property or Capital Gains schedules
‘Squish’ your workload with consolidated entry. This option is available on UK property and Capital Gains schedules and is a huge stress-buster when you’ve got a pile of properties or capital gains to enter.
Keep internal notes as you go
The internal notes don’t get sent to HMRC so you can use them as you work to remind yourself of client information, time taken, any hiccups you run into… The feature is open-ended and gives our users a flexible tool to ease the mental load.
Look back, move forward
It’s nice when the first draft of your return is also the final version, but usually there’s some back and forth. BTCSoftware’s Summary & Backing Schedule report shows you a breakdown of all schedules and boxes that contain data. The report makes it easy to look back at the return in summary without trawling through every schedule.
Efficient online filing to HMRC
Lastly, you can file your completed and approved Self Assessment Tax Returns with HMRC through BTCSoftware. This includes Individual (SA100) including SA302, Partnership (SA800), and Trust (SA900) Tax Returns, including Scottish rates.
Bonus: Free filing January
In support of our community, and in anticipation of a higher volume of last-minute work, Bright is offering free filing in January on BTCHub to save you money (no need to pay for more returns with your usual software supplier!) and time with our speedy and intuitive interface.
You’ll get email support from our amazing team, access to BTCHub online (for free) until February 1 2023, and a quick solution to impress potential clients.
Is there a catch?
No catch, just a request; we’d love some feedback on your experience of BTCHub so we’ll send you a survey link by email in February.
And – let’s be honest – we’re also hoping that you’ll love it enough to switch to BTCSoftware in February for all your tax and compliance software requirements.
Book a demo
Want to find out more about Bright’s practice management and tax compliance solutions? Book a demo today to see the software in action.
Bright creates software for tax, compliance, practice management and payroll. We’re on a mission to make a happy and efficient working life a reality for accountants and businesses through reliable software and amazing support.
