Personal Tax – MTD Quarters Q&A 2026 onwards

personal-tax-mtd-quarters-qa-2026-onwards

Personal Tax – MTD Quarters Q&A 2026 onwards

31st March 2026

As MTD is mandatory from 2026 onwards, there are new questions raised and we shall add answers here:

Common terms used in Personal Tax: ‘Digital Tax Hub’ (or ‘DTH’) – At the top of PT, Digital Tax, Digital tax hub, select Trade or property. Once you have retrieved the quarters from HMRC and imported income etc, those details will appear in the DTH.

MTD screens lagging and slow for all pcs/users – This is a known issue with the IRIS Development team and they are looking for fixes in later 2026 versions (Note after the 26.1.0 release). We will update this once we have further details.

How to set up MTD and retrieve quarters for my PT clients? Read this KB on the main actions needed to set it up

Can I access training Videos and Webinars? Please read this KB here on INSIGHTS

How to link my ASA login into PT to retrieve quarters? Please read this KB here

Retrieve quarter periods but will not show and get MATCHING RESOURCE NOT FOUND  – Read this KB as HMRC may not require the data until next tax year and thus no quarter periods will show in your period/year you are on right now.

How to get MTD data from AP to show in BT and PT? Please read this KB

How to reupload new data after a quarter has been accepted etc? You need to make a edit/correct etc a submission – open the relevant quarter, then use the ‘RESET STATUS’ option at the bottom. This unlocks the quarter and allows you to import data, allow to finalise and submit again.

Cannot submit a Quarter/or Adjustment as ‘button is greyed out’? Go to Submissions (on left side) / Previous submissions / it will list every submission sent or rejected – open the relevant row to see the report. If you need to submit again, open the relevant quarter and use the ‘RESET STATUS’ option at the bottom, which unlocks the quarter.

Client is not required to do MTD quarters in 2026 but cannot manually enter data for property? This lock out of the income/expenses entry is triggered by the MTD registration date entry in PT (Admin/edit tax return dates/ MTD registration date). To unlock the property screens, load the affected tax year eg 2026, remove the MTD reg date, save. At the top of PT: Change year to the next tax year eg 2027, now enter in the MTD reg date, save. This will now only lock out the 2027 tax year entry screens and NOT affect 2026 – you can now enter data again for 2026.

Note: Only enter a MTD registration date in the correct Tax Year. For example a date of ’05/04/2026′ should only be entered in the 2027 tax year (and not 2026 tax year – at the very top of TP, find the year selector). If you enter the MTD reg date in the wrong tax year, it may lock out the income/expense boxes and stop all manual entries for the wrong tax year.

If a client falls under the income threshold (eg below £20K)? Once mandated by HMRC, a taxpayer remains in MTD for a minimum of three years even if the qualifying income falls below the respective threshold, unless they terminate the self employment and inform HMRC via the software. They may still be required to send rental figures via MTD if they had both. The clients should however consult HMRC guidance first 

Multiple properties – How to import rent/expenses etc per property? You will need to assign all entries to one of the multiple properties – on the IMPORT screens once you have downloaded the CSV file, click on the header “Property” and you will see the list of all the properties saved in PT.

Does IRIS offer any non-bridging software? Answer: We have an IRIS Kashflow/Cashbook solution (Cashbook is free to our IAS Tax users dependent on license limits)

HMRC ‘MFA’ login – how it affects PT MTD? The 2026 onwards HMRC MFA (multi-factor authentication) rules will not affect PT MTD, it only applies if users login to the HMRC website directly (and not via PT).

The training videos imply that data could be manually input into excel and converted to a CSV for upload. Is this deemed to be digital? Answer: HMRC does in fact accept excels as digital record keeping and IRIS has functionality to consume transactional data electronically which passes digital link rules and so yes this is acceptable

Why are the MTD periods showing incorrectly (eg 6 April 2025 to 5 January 2026)? This is a HMRC decision: When the user retrieves period data from HMRC, the period returned is based on HMRC’s cumulative reporting structure, NOT the full tax year. HMRC does not return data up to the end of the tax year (5 April) unless the taxpayer is already in that period. Instead, HMRC returns: Start date: the start of the tax year (always 6 April), and End date: the end of the current quarterly update period that the taxpayer is currently in. This means the end date changes depending on when the retrieval is performed: So if a retrieval is triggered today 19 November 2025, HMRC considers the user to be in Quarter 3, so the cumulative period it returns is 6 April 2025 to 5 January 2026, once the date passes 5 January 2026, the same retrieval will return 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026 because the client will then be in Quarter 4, which is the final cumulative period of the year.

What are the ‘Status types’ for each quarter in DTH? 1. Awaiting Action, 2. In Progress, 3. Approved, 4. Rejected. If you use the ‘Reset Status’ option for a specific quarter it will change the status to ‘Awaiting Action’.

Reasons why submission was REJECTED: If the status says ‘REJECTED’ then go to Submissions (on left side) / Previous submissions / it will list every submission sent or rejected – open the relevant row to see the report

Why it shows the same values on all quarters and Reporting types of the quarters? In specific reports it will list the per quarters values as a cumulative total which include any prior quarters. This is by HMRC design. For example Quarter 1 income is £1000, Q2 income is £500, Q3 is £0 and Q4 is £0. When you run certain reports which lists the 4 quarters it may a £1500 per quarter, rather then £1000 for 1st and £500 for 2nd and if you only enter for Q1- this value will appear on Q2/3/4 as well. Only specific reports will use the cumulative totals.

Get ‘Business ID is blank’ when open a period or retrieve periods – this means when PT is linking your ASA login with HMRC, they cannot find the trade or property. When clicking ‘Retrieve periods’. Click on the button from the ‘Period Settings’ screen, you would have to select the correct business from the “Unmatched record screen” and Click OK. This will match the trade with your client and HMRC MTD. if that doesn’t work then 1) Check the clients NI code and ensure it matches the one saved from the HMRC side and then ensure the Client exists as MTD registered in your ASA account. 2) If the Sole trade is saved under the type ‘Partnership’ then its because HMRC is comparing the type, so they do not match and you get the error – read this KB. 3) Reset your ASA login under Authorised agents and log in again (Do not use the option ‘Agent services account sign up). 4) Ensure you have created the next trade period and also loaded the next tax year and try again under the next period/new year.

Error FORMAT VALUE the value must be between -9999etc and 999etc. Path Period expenses: (A specific expense is mentioned here). This is a known defect linked to the Excel file/MTD issue. We are planning to release a fix in the upcoming Service pack Mid May 2026.

Are ‘Calendar periods 1st April ‘ available for Property? For Example: 1st Apr to 30 June, 1 July to 30 Sept, 1 Oct to 31 Dec, 1 Jan to 31 Mar. No this is not available in PT MTD. IRIS Development team have checked with HMRC and they confirm the Calendar accounting period information is not collected for property businesses.

The MTD registration date is now linked to the tick box ‘Traditional rather then cash basis’. If you have a MTD reg date saved and you match your sole trade and get the quarters to show – the tick box ‘Traditional rather then cash basis’ can be ticked/saved (open the period/ business details tab). If you have a MTD date and not matched/no quarters show – you cannot save this tick box as its required by HMRC due to MTD rules.

What does ‘Agent is responsible for MTD obligation’ tick box do? It is currently only used for information and doesn’t restrict/limit usage to the client or user.

Why it shows income data even tho there is no data imported? (in the DTH screen on the bottom middle) Answer: This is what HMRC have received in the prior/past for the quarters, as they keep a record on what was submitted even when it has deleted it from PT.

Used other software like Kashflow to submit the quarters and are all accepted but the DTH screens top right and left side say the 4 quarters are still ‘In progress/awaiting action’ etc – why? Look at the bottom right of the DTH screen (see image below) showing the quarters – this is what HMRC has actually received (eg ‘Obligation met’). So you can ignore the rest of the DTH screens as the MTD Development team look to enhance this screen in a future update to help explain this.