For sole traders filing Self Assessment

Self-employed and sole traders

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  For sole traders keeping their records for Self Assessment

  Income and expenses tracker

  Keep a year of business records in one place. Type each payment you receive and each business cost you pay, and the tracker sorts your costs into GOV.UK's expense headings, totals each tax month and works out your profit for the year. It splits mixed-use bills, like a phone you also use at home, so only the business part counts.

  £9Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders getting ready to file their tax return

  Self Assessment prep workbook

  Get ready for your Self Assessment in one place. Tick off what you need to gather, type in your year's figures, and see an estimate of the Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance on your profit, worked out band by band so you can follow it. It also shows whether payments on account are likely and what falls due on the 31 January and 31 July after the tax year.

  £9Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders claiming business miles in a car or van

  Mileage log

  Log each business journey in your car or van. The log adds up your miles and works out the simplified mileage claim for the tax year you choose: 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles in 2026 to 2027 (45p in 2025 to 2026), then 25p. A journey that crosses the 10,000-mile line is split between the two rates.

  FreeExcel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders who work from home

  Use-of-home calculator

  Work out what working from home is worth two ways and see them side by side. The flat rate way uses GOV.UK's simplified expenses, £10, £18 or £26 a month depending on your hours, plus the business share of Council Tax, home insurance and mortgage interest, which HMRC's manual allows on top. The actual costs way shares all your household bills by the rooms you use and the days you work at home, as in GOV.UK's own example. Phone and internet go on top of either. The calculator shows both; the choice is yours.

  £5Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders who want to know how much to put aside for tax

  Tax-pot savings calculator

  Know how much to put aside for tax as you go. Tell it the profit you expect this year (or let it use what you've earned so far) and it estimates the Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance on that profit. It turns the estimate into pence in every pound to put aside, suggests an amount each month from what you actually made, and tracks your tax pot so you can see if it's keeping up.

  £5Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders who want to know who still owes them

  Invoice tracker

  Keep every invoice you send on one sheet and see at a glance what's been paid, what's still owed and what's overdue. It works out each due date, counts the days an invoice is late, handles part payments and credit notes, and totals the money you received in the tax year for your records.

  £5Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders who want to see the next 12 months coming

  Cash-flow forecast

  See the next twelve months before they happen. Type the money you expect in and out each month and the forecast works out your bank balance at every month end, warns you when it would dip below zero, and drops your Self Assessment payments into January and July so the tax bill isn't a surprise. As each month ends, type what really happened beside the forecast to see the difference.

  £7Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets

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  For sole traders who want quarter-by-quarter totals

  Quarterly summary (not Making Tax Digital software)

  See your money in and business costs for each three-month period of the tax year, by GOV.UK's expense headings, with running totals for each period and a profit figure. It isn't Making Tax Digital software and can't send anything to HMRC: it helps you check your figures.

  £7Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets