How Acrenvo compares MTD software

We add a product when it is relevant to UK landlords or sole traders, is presented as HMRC-recognised for MTD for Income Tax, and publishes enough about its prices and how it works for us to check. We compare 46 products today, which is not the whole market.

Other products that matter to these readers are added once what their official pages say is consistent enough to check. A provider is not excluded because it has no commercial relationship with Acrenvo, and payment cannot buy a position.

The comparison uses the regular published price rather than making a short introductory discount look permanent. VAT, annual billing, trials, bank-account conditions, property caps and per-submission charges stay in the notes beside the figure.

Where a plan’s price depends on a condition, the selector checks that condition against your answers. For example, FreeAgent’s bank-funded price is not available when you say you do not use a qualifying bank, and the price for mixed property and self-employment income reflects FreeAgent’s requirement for two accounts. Where a price depends on how many properties you have, the selector uses the band that matches your answer.

Some answers rule products out, so a product is removed when it cannot meet a need you tell us about: self-employment support, multiple properties, joint ownership, former-FHL handling, a mobile workflow and a free plan you can file with. Spreadsheet bridging software is removed when you tell us you are not comfortable working in a spreadsheet. A product is also left out when none of its plans has a price we can compare for your answers, and when you choose the cheapest paid option, a product with no paid plan is left out too. Some software needs your share of ownership to be the same for every property in a portfolio. The selector does not ask about ownership shares, so that software is left out when you own property jointly and have more than one. If you have neither rental nor self-employment income, no product is left. The questions about property are skipped when you have no rental income, and the selector waits until you have answered every question that applies before it names a match from the shortlist.

The products that are left are then ordered by how well they fit what you told us, such as a qualifying bank account, tools built for landlords, working from your phone or keeping your spreadsheet. Price only comes first when you choose the cheapest paid option, and commission plays no part in the order.

When two products fit equally well, the one with the lower price comes first, and when the price is the same too, they are listed A to Z by name. If your best match ties with other products in this way, the selector names them under it, so you can see that the name alone put it first.

Every product page shows when we last checked it and where its figures came from. A price check reads all 46 pricing pages on the 1st and 15th of each month, and separate checks watch for new legal start dates. If a product is left out of the price check, the site cannot be updated until it is added back. A product page says so when our check of its prices is more than 60 days old, and the site cannot be updated while more than 1 in 10 of the products we compare are past that age.

Provider pages can be unclear or change without notice. When two official pages disagree, we leave the uncertainty in the note rather than guess which one is right. You can send corrections to hello@acrenvo.com.

The current questions do not fully test foreign-property reporting, accounting-period choices, agent workflows, every non-business income source or whether the software can already send the tax return at the end of the year, so it is worth asking the provider to confirm those points before you subscribe.

The selector is general information, not tax advice. Use the software selector to narrow the list, then check the provider’s current terms and HMRC’s own guidance for the final decision.