Digital records rules, explained

MTD’s first rule isn’t about filing: it’s about record-keeping. From your start date, you must keep records of your business income and expenses digitally, in software that can send them to HMRC.

What counts as a digital record?

For each transaction: the date, the amount, and the category it belongs to, held in software (or a spreadsheet connected to software). Paper receipts in a shoebox still matter as evidence, but the record HMRC cares about is the digital one.

The “digital links” rule

Once your figures are in digital form, they must travel to HMRC digitally end-to-end. You can’t total up a spreadsheet and retype the numbers into a filing screen. That manual retype breaks the chain. This is why a spreadsheet alone isn’t MTD-compliant: it needs bridging software, or software that holds the records itself.

QuarterFile is built to be that digital link: your bank statement comes in as a CSV, every line becomes a digital record you categorise and confirm, and the totals will go to HMRC through their API when filing opens for the 7 February 2027 quarter. No retyping anywhere.

How long to keep records

The usual HMRC record-keeping rules still apply: at least five years (opens in a new tab) after the 31 January deadline for the relevant tax year. Keep your own exports either way: your records download as CSV from QuarterFile at any time, and every receipt HMRC sends back is kept alongside them.

Next: what goes in each MTD category covers the boxes those records have to land in, and the deadlines page has the four dates they are kept for.