IRIS and Dext at Accountex 2026: one stand, one MTD workflow, two days

Accountex London is always special because of the people you meet there.

But this year it was even more memorable. Why? Because of the people we brought with us.

For the first time at Accountex, IRIS and Dext shared a stand – as one. No more sending customers to colleagues across the exhibition hall to another stand. Instead, we could take our customers and prospects through our full MTD for IT compliance workflow in one place (more on that later).

As an accountant who had used both Dext and IRIS in practice, sharing this stand was a heartwarming moment. Dext was the biggest addition to the IRIS family so far, and the value the team brings – a mix of great tech and incredible expertise – makes me proud to call them my colleagues because together we help to eliminate manual work, improve compliance and help firms to scale.

Adding to the excitement, we have just launched our Group Accounts capabilities within IRIS Elements, which was a big milestone.

But enough about us: what did you have to say about the world of accounting and the current challenges and opportunities it presents?

What were the biggest talking points at Accountex this year?

By far the biggest industry talking points were MTD for Income Tax (MTD for IT) and AI in accounting.

We’ll start with MTD. After that, in the section on IRIS and Dext Accountex presentations, we’ll explore the discussion around AI.

Was there really that much talk about MTD at Accountex?

On the exhibition floor, large numbers of accountants said they were worried about the time drain MTD for IT might bring. For these accountants, daily life is, of course, becoming very different. Instead of catching up with clients once a year to do their tax return, they are now looking at five touchpoints – four quarterly updates and one final submission.

That will feel like tax season all year round if accountants don’t put the right measures in place.

Firms will struggle to charge for the effort under a business-as-usual approach. They must make MTD processes more efficient. To help them, vendors must also rise to the challenge.

This, of course, is an important issue for us to address. We can help with the complete workflow. Under MTD for IT, Dext captures the data, and IRIS files the compliance.

What MTD problems did people have?

To deal with MTD for IT, you need a flexible and efficient workflow. That means much of the discussion on the stand was around where the bottlenecks might be.

Blockers varied greatly. Some firms we spoke to needed cleaner data, for example. They wanted receipts, invoices and bank feeds to be filed in a pristine way, so the quarterly updates don’t become a frantic chase for info – or a late night of rekeying data.

For other firms, the bottleneck was waiting for them at the finish line. They struggled to send the data over to HMRC.

The commonality across both was around managing the multiple touch points in an efficient way.

Meanwhile, some firms are exploring a different approach. They want to support their clients with their MTD requirements but not necessarily recruit the additional headcount, so they are looking at options to outsource the MTD process to keep costs down while being able to predict pricing with more confidence. This is something that is more than possible and doesn’t take too long to set up.

I’m sure you have your own ambitions regarding MTD for IT. Still, I feel like everyone’s motto this year should be “MTD means five touchpoints, not five times the effort.”

So, the question needs to be: what systems can make MTD work for you?

Our Accountex talks and poll results: what you said about MTD, AI and more

Here are some of the audience feedback stats and talking points during our sessions:

Day 1 — The numbers you can’t see: Why most firms are flying blind on capacity and margin

Theatre 3, Practice Excellence. John Cooper and Eva Mrazikova.

“The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”

Do most firms know their clients better than they know themselves?

It was time to find out. We asked the audience five questions:

• What’s your recovery rate by service line?
• How much WIP is sitting over 90 days?
• Where is senior partner time really going?
• What’s your real chargeable time as a percentage of attended time?
• Which ten clients are most profitable – not biggest, most profitable?

Only 5% could answer all five questions. 60% could answer one or two. Less than a quarter (23%) could answer three or four. Our Accountex audience is not alone. We have put those questions to hundreds of UK firms in the run-up to Accountex, and not a single senior practitioner could confidently answer all of them.

But it’s important to tackle these. For every “I don’t know”, a piece of confidence and margin disappears. It’s a subtle but steady leak.

And the result is shocking: heads of department or senior partners doing work worth a third of their hourly rate, WIP being constantly written off and sitting unbilled for months, and – time and time again – doing too much for clients who aren’t paying enough.

You also can’t grow as a firm without this data. Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion. It’s a mistake to think you can reach for the three productivity levers – tech and efficiency, outsourcing, or pricing – without knowing the answers to those five questions.

Day 1 — MTD for income tax, compliance and the AI-enhanced accountant and bookkeeper: the new normal

Theatre 13, Tax & Compliance. Charlotte Ing (Pure Cloud Accountancy), Jen Staves (HMRC), Paul Aplin OBE, Paul Lodder (Dext), Eva Mrazikova (IRIS).

HMRC, Pure Cloud Accountancy, and I joined a Dext-led talk on the future of accounting. It covered what HMRC actually wants from MTD for IT, what firms are seeing in the real world, and where AI genuinely helps versus where it’s still a vendor buzzword.

Let’s be honest here. AI can be controversial, but won’t be if – as an industry – accountants and their software vendors ask fundamental questions. For example, what is the role of AI in accounting? How do we best use it to achieve our goals while preserving the value and integrity that accountants bring?

AI doesn’t fix what we can’t see.

Ultimately, mastering AI means grounding services in quality. If, as accountants, we don’t get steered by the hype but use it responsibly, we can guide the future while keeping what makes us great intact. The answer lies in being human first and using tech so we can free time and deliver a people-centric service.

Day 2, 11:20 — From receipt to return: What breaks when annual becomes quarterly

Theatre 3, Practice Excellence. Jenny Strudwick (IRIS), Nick Paddenburg (Brighton Tax), Paul Lodder (Dext), Eva Mrazikova (IRIS).

With so much happening to the industry this year, what really matters to you as accountants?

Because of this question, we decided to do something different. We let the audience steer the discussion.

The majority of live poll respondents said they hadn’t decided how they were going to charge for MTD – even though 71% said they would be looking after quarterly updates on behalf of clients. For many, this work will feel like new territory – this year’s phase of the MTD rollout is particularly huge, but 94% of accountants did not take part in HMRC’s pilot.

We went through the MTD lifecycle, flagging where the roadblocks are going to land and what firms can do now to be ready ahead of the first quarterly deadline rather than during it.

The standout, for me, was Nick Paddenburg’s view from inside Brighton Tax. The peers in the room got to see what it looks like when a firm has rebuilt its onboarding and review process for the new MTD rhythm, rather than forcing it to fit yesterday’s solutions.

How are you going to charge for MTD?

Haven't decided 47%

Per quarterly update 29%

Restructured into subscription 24%

Absorbed into existing fee 0%

Have you been involved in the pilot for MTD for IT?

94% No

• No 94% (30)
• Yes 6% (2)

Life after Accountex – what should you do now?

There's a lot of noise and energy around Accountex. There always is. Most of it comes from us, the vendors!

With so many solutions, it can be hard to let the dust settle and take action. Don't be tempted to reach for one tool that seemed appealing and then place it on top of what you already do. That goes double for MTD: work needs to pass seamlessly from one task to another with no dead ends. And whatever solution you choose, it needs to cater for the different clients that you serve.

The best answer is to look at your workflows. See what needs fixing. Answer our big five questions, decide where you want to add value for clients, and work from there. Pinpoint what’s getting in your way.

Then start designing a process, either something entirely new or fine-tuning what you do best.

With IRIS and Dext – we just don’t sell the software. We sell a path to a more valuable and sustainable practice.

Possible solutions

Here's a quick reminder of just some of the solutions we shared at Accountex:

• Dext Solo for MTD for IT for sole traders and landlords
• IRIS Elements Cashbook – a simple digital record-keeping tool for the simplest of sole traders for MTD for IT
• IRIS Elements – our cloud native compliance and practice management solution
• IRIS Cloud Accountancy Suite – covering the most complex compliance needs
• IRIS Outsourcing – for adding capacity without adding the headcount

Need to speak to our team?

What’s good for one accounting firm is not necessarily what’s good for you.

IRIS can help you take a look at your firm, see what will work best, and offer a complete solution to MTD and beyond.

Click here to speak to our team.