Do I need to analyse my expenses into categories?
For most taxpayers with self employment and property income the answer is “no”.
For most people, detailed categorisation is not required by HMRC
Many people expect to analyse their expenses into detailed categories.
There are multiple reasons for this:
- it's what you're used to
- the HMRC tax return shows all the boxes
- an adviser has asked for it
- you want it for your own purposes.
But for those people who don't earn more than £90k from a single source, it’s not needed. There are simpler ways to do this.
Income under £90k from self‑employment or UK property
If your business or UK property rental income is £90,000 or less for the year you’re reporting, HMRC let you use simpler categorisation.
You don't need a detailed breakdown by type of income or expense, but can simply report all your income and expenses through one category.
You may see this referred to as the “short form of the tax return” or “three‑line accounting”.
You still need to keep records, and the same rules apply about what you can claim
The simplification is about categorisation - you still need to have all the transaction records, and your expenses must meet the same conditions of whether you can claim them. You just don't need to identify whether something is a marketing cost, a travel cost, a legal cost etc - they're all business expenses.
Mortgage interest and finance costs
These are an exception in that they do need to be reported separately as they are not treated like other expenses for tax purposes. See below for how to do this in untied.
You can still choose to add more detailed tags
If you want to analyse your expenses in more detail for your own purposes (even if HMRC don’t require it), see our article on custom tags in untied.
Income over £90k from self‑employment or UK property
If your property or self‑employment income is more than £90,000 for one of these sources (or is likely to be), you’ll need the more granular tags and must report them to HMRC.
We can enable these advanced tags. Just get in touch.
What happens if I pass the threshold part-way through the year?
If you begin the year using untied’s standard (simpler) tags and your income then passes the threshold, you’ll need to retag to the more detailed categories as part of the end‑of‑year process.
How this works in untied
By default, most untied users need only the simpler categories. That’s why you’ll generally just see tags like “business income”, “business expense”, “property income”, and “property expense”.
Mortgage interest and finance costs
These are entered separately via a form (because for many people a mortgage payment will include a repayment and an interest element).
Foreign property
Foreign property works slightly differently. You must report income and expenses separately for each property, but you don’t need to break down expenses into detailed categories. You can report consolidated expenses regardless of your income level.
I’ve been reporting using the detailed categories up to now. Can I switch?
If you’re entitled to use simpler categorisation, you can switch. You don't need to do anything other than to tag things as business income and expense, and property income and expense in untied.
Reference - what the simple categories are
Simple expense categories - self-employment (untied default)
Total expenses
Simple expense categories - UK property (untied default)
Total expenses
Non-residential property finance costs (in untied these are entered separately and can be tagged for now as personal)
Reference - what the detailed categories are
Full expense categories - self-employment
Cost of goods bought for resale or goods used
Construction industry - payments to subcontractors
Wages, salaries and other staff costs
Car, van and travel expenses
Rent, rates, power and insurance costs
Repairs and maintenance of property and equipment
Phone, fax, stationery and other office costs
Advertising
Business entertainment costs (these used to be combined with Advertising)
Interest on bank and other loans
Bank, credit card and other financial charges
Irrecoverable debts written off
Accountancy, legal and other professional fees
Depreciation and loss or profit on sale of assets
Other business expense
Full expense categories - UK property
Rent, rates, insurance and ground rents
Property repairs and maintenance
Non-residential property finance costs
Legal, management and other professional fees
Costs of services provided, including wages
Travel costs
Other allowable property expenses
Other
Disallowable costs
Other software may show reporting for disallowable costs, mainly for accountants who don’t have direct access to client records. In untied this is managed by restricting what you claim, splitting transactions, and mapping certain costs away from the tax return.
Trading and property allowances
untied automatically works these out and claims them if appropriate.
Something missing?
If you need a field that is not being displayed then get in touch. While we have full integration, there are some fields that we don't expose to all users where the use is very specific.