Hi,
Can you advise if there is any progress with Solar Accounts with regards to HMRC's Making Tax Digital plans?
Does Solar online accept bank feeds yet?
Is Solar cloud version going to be adequate for the purpose?
I have held off moving clients onto cloud version until I am satisfied the software will be suitable - I do hope so as I much prefer Solar to any other software.

Hi Marilyn,

With regard to importing bank statement data files, this is something many users have requested and is a high priority for us. It is clear that users could save lots of time if they didn't need to manually input details from every transaction on their bank statement. We have been working on this feature, but I'm afraid I cannot say when it will be released - sorry.

Regarding the HMRC 'Making Tax Digital' plans, it is not yet clear to us that having a way to directly submit data online from Solar Accounts to HMRC would save users a significant amount of time. For example, with quarterly VAT returns our users currently copy and paste the figures from Solar Accounts to the HMRC web page. We estimate that if users could directly submit the VAT return from our software, they would save about 5-10 minutes every 3 months. No doubt that would be useful, but so far we are focused on other features that would be even more useful to our users - like developing a smartphone app or locking transaction periods. We will apply the same logic to the new HMRC rules for tax returns - if there is a simple and quick way for users to meet the requirements using the HMRC website then we will probably focus development on other more valuable features.

Regards,

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply.
I have just received an update for MTD.

This states that if we currently use the HMRC free software (for Tax Returns) then 'HMRC will not be writing any software solutions to mirror their current offerings. If you are an agent, currently using the free HMRC products, then you need to start considering your requirements, and looking at what third party products will be available to meet your needs'.

Therefore it looks like it would be more beneficial for someone to use a software for the accounts which can also produce the necessary reports to upload to HMRC.

However, we are just as much in the dark about all this as you probably are so we will just have to wait and see the outcome of HMRC consultations which run from now until November 2016.

Hi Marilyn,

Thanks for this information. Yes if HMRC in their wisdom do not provide an easy way to submit returns on their website or some other HMRC software then it may make sense for us to develop a way to submit them via Solar Accounts. We'll make a decision when the HMRC proposals are a bit more concrete.

Regards