For accountants and bookkeepers
Every client's MTD quarterly updates, on one sheet
Who is not signed up. Whose records have not arrived. What has been filed. And — the one that costs you — which clients have already missed a quarter. Open it and the whole practice is on one screen, worked out from today's date.
The problem it solves
MTD for Income Tax started in April 2026. Four quarterly updates per client, per year, for every client over £50,000 — and in year one there is no established way to keep track of them. Practices are doing it in whatever spreadsheet they threw together in July, or in their heads.
The failure mode is specific and quiet: a deadline passes, everyone moves on to the next quarter, and the client who never filed simply stops being visible. Nobody notices until the final declaration, when the year has to reconcile and it doesn't.
This sheet is built around that one failure. A missed quarter keeps counting, in red, for the rest of the year — it does not roll away when the next deadline arrives.
What you actually look at
| Client | Signed up? | In MTD now? | Records in? | Status | Missed Qs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashfield Joinery Ltd | Yes | Yes | Yes | Filed | 0 |
| B. Kowalski (property) | Yes | Yes | No | Not filed | 0 |
| Cheriton Plant Hire | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not filed | 1 |
| D. Osei | No | Yes | No | Not filed | 2 |
| Elmtree Lettings | Yes | Not yet | — | Not in MTD | 0 |
Red is a client carrying a missed quarter. Amber is due within a fortnight and not filed. Green is done. Grey is not in MTD this year — a 2027 or 2028 wave client is never shown as missing a 2026/27 quarter they were never in scope for.
Those names are illustration. The file arrives empty — the client list is yours, and the only columns you ever type into are the name, whether they are signed up, which wave they are mandated in, and then each quarter as it is filed.
What is in it
- Client tracker — 60 rows, four quarters each, with sign-up status, records received, filing status and a running missed-quarter count
- Practice dashboard — headline counts, the current quarter, days remaining, and the three lists you act on: not signed up, records outstanding, missed quarters
- Deadlines tab — all four 2026/27 quarters plus the final declaration, with a live countdown on each
- Start Here — how it works in three steps, and the two things practices are getting wrong in year one
Every figure is a live formula driven by TODAY(). The current
quarter, the days remaining and the missed count are recalculated the moment you open it, so it is
never a snapshot of the day it was made.
Two things year one is catching people out on
Adding a client authorisation does not sign them up. An authorisation in your agent services account lets you act for them; each client still has to be signed up to MTD individually. That is why the first column of the tracker is Signed up? and why it goes red.
There are no penalty points for late quarterly updates in 2026/27. Late filing and late payment penalties on the return itself are unchanged, but the quarterly soft landing is real. We would rather tell you that than sell this on a fine that does not exist — the reason to track the quarters is that the final declaration depends on them.
Both re-checked against GOV.UK on 31 August 2026. More detail in MTD for accountants and bookkeepers.
Questions
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. No macros, no tables, no dynamic-array functions — plain formulas that behave the same in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers. That is a deliberate constraint, and it is tested.
How many clients does it hold?
Sixty rows as shipped. Copy a row down for more — every calculated column is a formula, so extra rows inherit the logic.
Will it still be right next quarter?
Yes. Everything keys off TODAY(), so the current quarter, the countdown and the
missed-quarter count work themselves out each time you open the file. Nothing to roll forward.
Is there a subscription?
No. £39 once, the file is yours, and updates for 2026/27 are free — if HMRC moves a date we send the revised sheet.
Why not just ask an AI to build one?
You can, and in about a minute you will have something that looks right. What you will not have is any signal about which parts it guessed. Three things in this sheet are easy to get confidently wrong: the filing dates; the fact that HMRC's standard quarterly periods are cumulative — every one runs from 6 April to the quarter end, not three discrete months; and that adding a client authorisation does not sign that client up. Checking those against GOV.UK is the actual work, and it is the part you are paying for here. Every date and rule in this file was verified against a named GOV.UK page on 31 August 2026, and re-checked when HMRC moves.
If you would rather build your own, the two traps below are the ones catching practices out in year one. They are free and they are the useful half — take them.
What happens if I paste my client list in?
It works, and the sheet notices. Neither Excel nor Google Sheets applies a dropdown to pasted cells, so a paste is exactly how a wrong value gets in — and a value that is not Filed is counted as a missed quarter. The dashboard carries a rows needing a valid entry count for that reason: if it is above zero, some row is not being scored the way you think it is, and it tells you before the figures mislead you.
What if it is not useful?
Email us within 14 days and we refund it, no argument. It is a spreadsheet; we would rather you had your £39 back than a file you do not open.
Sold through Paddle, who handle VAT as merchant of record. Download is immediate. Refund policy.
Not what you needed?
If you are filing for yourself rather than for clients, the four-spreadsheet toolkit is £19 and aimed at sole traders and landlords. And the free tools — what to send, every deadline, which software works with a spreadsheet — stay free either way.