Making Tax Digital for Income Tax starts from April 2026. If you're a self-employed doctor earning over £50,000, you'll need compatible software to keep digital records and submit quarterly updates to HMRC.
Let's be honest — this is another regulatory burden landing on the shoulders of self-employed healthcare professionals who are already stretched thin. But it doesn't need to be complicated, and it definitely doesn't need to be expensive.
What the alternatives cost
The MTD software market is dominated by general-purpose accounting platforms. Xero, FreeAgent, and QuickBooks are all solid products, but they're built for every type of business — Amazon sellers, limited companies, partnerships, freelance designers. That breadth comes with complexity and a monthly price tag that starts the moment you sign up.
As a sole trader, you're looking at roughly £7–£19 per month (plus VAT) depending on the platform and plan. Xero's Simple plan starts at £7/month. QuickBooks Sole Trader is £10/month. FreeAgent charges £19/month for sole traders. Most offer introductory discounts — half price for a few months — but after that, the full price kicks in and keeps going whether you've submitted anything to HMRC or not.
For a locum doctor whose MTD obligations amount to four quarterly submissions a year, that means paying for twelve months of software to file four times.
Why we don't charge a subscription
We're all drowning in subscriptions. Streaming services, cloud storage, phone insurance, app renewals — there's always something coming out of your account that you forgot you signed up for. We didn't want Duly Filed to be another one of those.
So we made the platform completely free to use. Entering your income, logging your expenses, viewing your summaries, keeping your digital records — all free, all the time.
You only pay when Duly Filed does something genuinely valuable for you: submitting your quarterly update to HMRC. The cost is £18 per submission, or £60 for an annual pass covering all four quarterly filings for the tax year.
No monthly fee. No introductory pricing that doubles after six months. No features locked behind higher tiers.
Why free makes sense for everyone
We're a small but focused team, and we genuinely want our software to be useful. We know that if it's not, you'll stop using it — and that's exactly the point. Making the platform free lets you see the benefit that builds up over time. You enter your income and expenses as they happen, and by the time a quarterly deadline arrives, your submission is essentially ready to go. The value becomes obvious through use, not through a sales page.
This model also keeps our incentives aligned with yours. We only earn when you find enough value in the platform to submit through it. If the experience is poor, you leave and we earn nothing. That keeps us focused on making the product genuinely good — not on locking you into a subscription you might forget to cancel.
The bottom line
MTD for Income Tax is a new obligation, but it doesn't have to be a headache. Duly Filed gives you the platform for free and charges a fair price only when we do the work of submitting to HMRC — £60 for the year, or £18 per quarter if you prefer to pay as you go.
If you're a self-employed doctor looking for a simpler, more affordable way to handle MTD, Duly Filed was built for you.