First MTD Quarterly Submission: Step-by-Step Guide

Your first Making Tax Digital quarterly submission can feel daunting. After years of filing a single Self Assessment return each January, the idea of reporting to HMRC four times a year — using new software, following new rules — is enough to make any landlord anxious. But here's the reassuring truth: a quarterly update is far simpler than a full tax return, and once you've done it once, the process becomes routine.

Think of quarterly updates as progress reports rather than full submissions. You're telling HMRC what income you've received and what expenses you've incurred during a three-month period. There's no tax calculation at this stage, no payment due, and no complex supplementary pages to fill in. It's a summary, submitted digitally through compatible software.

This article walks you through everything: what to prepare, what the submission actually looks like step by step, what gets sent to HMRC, and what happens afterwards. By the end, you'll know exactly what to expect — and you'll wonder why you were worried in the first place.

Understanding the Quarterly Cycle

Under MTD for ITSA, the tax year is divided into four quarters. Each quarter covers a three-month period, and you must submit your update by the deadline shown below. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, so the quarters align with that cycle.

You have approximately one month after each quarter ends to submit your update. This gives you time to gather any final records, reconcile your figures, and review everything before sending. There's no need to submit on the first day — use the full window.

Note that there is also a Final Declaration (formerly called the End of Period Statement) due by 31 January following the end of the tax year. This is separate from the four quarterly updates and effectively replaces your annual Self Assessment return. We'll cover this in more detail later in this article.

The Week Before Your First Submission

Preparation is the key to a stress-free submission. In the week leading up to your first quarterly deadline, set aside an hour or two to get everything in order. If you've been keeping good digital records throughout the quarter, this should be straightforward. If you haven't, now is the time to catch up.

• Confirm all rental income has been recorded for the quarter — check bank statements against your records
• Ensure all allowable expenses have been entered with correct dates and categories
• Reconcile your records against your bank statements to catch any missing transactions
• Gather and file any receipts you haven't yet recorded (repairs, letting agent fees, insurance premiums)
• Check that each income and expense entry is allocated to the correct property
• Review expense categories to ensure nothing is miscategorised (e.g., a capital improvement logged as a repair)
• Confirm your MTD-compatible software is connected to HMRC (you should have done this during registration, but verify)
• Have your Government Gateway credentials to hand in case you need to re-authenticate

If this is genuinely your first quarter of digital record keeping, don't panic if it takes longer than expected. The first quarter always involves the most effort because you're learning the software and establishing habits. By Q2, you'll likely spend half the time.

What Data You Need to Gather

A quarterly update requires you to report your total property income and categorised expenses for the period. You don't need to send individual receipts or bank statements to HMRC — you're submitting summary totals. However, you must keep the underlying records in case HMRC ever requests them.

Here's what you need to have recorded for the quarter:

• Rental income: Total rent received during the quarter for each property. This is the actual cash received, not rent due. If a tenant hasn't paid, you don't include that amount until you receive it (cash basis) or you may include it if using accruals basis.
• Other property income: Any other income related to your rental business — for example, insurance claim payouts, income from granting easements, or charges to tenants for services.
• Repairs and maintenance: Costs of repairing and maintaining your properties, including plumber call-outs, redecorating between tenants, boiler servicing, and similar.
• Professional fees: Letting agent commissions, accountancy fees, legal costs related to tenancy agreements, and property management charges.
• Insurance: Landlord insurance premiums, building insurance, and rent guarantee insurance.
• Mortgage interest: The interest portion of your mortgage payments (not the capital repayment). Remember that mortgage interest relief for individual landlords is restricted to a 20% tax credit.
• Travel costs: Mileage or travel expenses for property inspections, meeting tenants, or collecting rent. HMRC allows 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles.
• Utilities and council tax: Only if you pay these as the landlord (e.g., during void periods or for HMO properties where bills are included).
• Allowable administrative costs: Phone calls, postage, stationery, and a proportion of home office costs if you manage properties from home.
• Other allowable expenses: Ground rent, service charges, advertising for tenants, safety certificates (gas, electrical, EPC), and similar.

Step-by-Step: Making Your First Submission

The exact screens and steps will vary depending on your MTD-compatible software, but the underlying process is the same. Here's what a typical first quarterly submission looks like using Latch as an example.

Step 1: Log in to your MTD-compatible software and navigate to the quarterly submissions section. You should see the current quarter highlighted, along with its deadline date. In Latch, this is found under the MTD section of your dashboard.

Step 2: Review your income summary. The software will show the total rental income recorded for the quarter, broken down by property if applicable. Check that these figures match your expectations. If you have three properties each generating £800/month, you'd expect to see roughly £2,400 per property (£7,200 total) for a full quarter.

Step 3: Review your expense summary. Your expenses should be displayed in HMRC-compliant categories. Common categories include repairs and maintenance, professional fees, insurance, and finance costs. Check that the totals look reasonable. A quarter with no expenses might indicate missing records.

Step 4: Check for any warnings or flags. Good software will highlight potential issues — for example, a property with income recorded but no expenses, an unusually large single expense that might need double-checking, or transactions that haven't been categorised. Resolve any flagged items before proceeding.

Step 5: Confirm the submission details. Before you submit, the software will typically show you a final summary of exactly what will be sent to HMRC. This is your last chance to review the figures. Take a moment to read through them carefully.

Step 6: Authenticate with HMRC. If your software isn't already connected to your HMRC account, you'll be prompted to sign in using your Government Gateway credentials. This authorises the software to submit on your behalf. You may need to complete two-factor authentication.

Step 7: Submit. Click the submit button. The software will transmit your quarterly update to HMRC's systems. This usually takes just a few seconds. You'll receive a confirmation with a unique submission reference.

Step 8: Save your confirmation. Keep a record of the submission reference, the date and time, and the figures submitted. Your software should store this automatically, but it's good practice to keep your own copy as well — a screenshot or PDF download is sufficient.

What Actually Gets Sent to HMRC

One of the biggest sources of anxiety is not knowing what data HMRC receives. Let's demystify this completely. A quarterly update is a summary — it is not a line-by-line transaction report.

When you submit a quarterly update for property income, HMRC receives the following data points:

• Your total property income for the quarter (the aggregate, not individual rent payments)
• Your expenses broken down by HMRC category (repairs, professional fees, finance costs, etc.)
• The quarter period (start and end dates)
• Your HMRC identifiers (UTR, National Insurance number)
• A software submission reference

HMRC does not receive copies of your invoices, receipts, bank statements, or tenant details as part of the quarterly update. They receive totals. However, you are legally required to keep all underlying records for at least five years in case of an enquiry.

Here's a simplified example of what a Q1 submission might look like for a landlord with two buy-to-let properties:

That's it. Those summary totals are the extent of what HMRC sees in your quarterly update. The simplicity might surprise you — it's genuinely less data than you'd put on a single page of your Self Assessment return.

Common First-Time Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

After speaking with accountants and landlords who've been through the MTD for VAT process (which has been running since 2019), we've identified the most common mistakes that first-time submitters make. Learn from their experience.

• Leaving everything to the last day: The most common mistake by far. If you discover a software issue or a missing record on the deadline day, you have no buffer. Aim to submit at least three to four days before the deadline.
• Mixing personal and property expenses: If you use the same bank account for personal spending and property management, it's easy to accidentally include a personal purchase in your property expenses. Keep a separate bank account for your rental business wherever possible.
• Forgetting to record income received in cash: If any tenants pay rent in cash, this is still taxable income that must be recorded. The same applies to any other cash payments related to your properties.
• Miscategorising capital expenditure as repairs: Replacing a broken tap is a repair (allowable expense). Replacing an entire bathroom suite with a higher-specification one is capital expenditure (not an allowable revenue expense). Getting this wrong can lead to problems down the line.
• Not reconciling with bank statements: Your software records should match your bank statements. A discrepancy means either a missing income entry, a missing expense, or a duplicate. Reconcile before every submission.
• Submitting for the wrong quarter: This sounds unlikely, but if you're catching up on multiple quarters (for example, if you registered late), double-check that you're submitting the correct period. Each quarter has fixed dates.

What Happens After You Submit

Once your quarterly update is submitted, several things happen — and several things don't. Understanding the aftermath helps you know what to expect.

Immediately after submission, you'll receive a digital acknowledgment from HMRC confirming receipt. This includes a unique reference number and the date and time of submission. Your software should display this and store it in your submission history.

HMRC will use the data from your quarterly updates to build a running picture of your tax position for the year. You may be able to view an estimated tax calculation in your HMRC online account (or through your software) based on the quarterly data submitted so far. This is provisional and will change as more quarters are submitted.

What does not happen: you do not need to make a tax payment after a quarterly update. No tax is due at this point. Tax payments continue to follow the existing Self Assessment payment schedule — typically 31 January and 31 July for payments on account. The quarterly updates are informational only.

• Save your submission confirmation reference for your records
• Download or screenshot the summary of figures submitted
• Note the deadline for the next quarter in your calendar
• Continue recording income and expenses as they occur during the next quarter — don't wait until the deadline approaches
• If you spot an error after submitting, make a note and correct it before your Final Declaration

The End-of-Year Final Declaration

After all four quarterly updates have been submitted, there's one more step: the Final Declaration. This replaces your annual Self Assessment tax return for property and self-employment income, and it's due by 31 January following the end of the tax year (for example, 31 January 2028 for the 2026/27 tax year).

The Final Declaration is where you finalise your figures for the year. It's your opportunity to make any corrections to the quarterly updates, add any income or expenses that were missed, and include any end-of-year adjustments such as capital allowances or loss relief claims.

Your quarterly updates feed directly into the Final Declaration. Think of it this way: the four quarterly submissions provide the raw data, and the Final Declaration is where you confirm that the data is complete and accurate. Your software will pull in the quarterly figures automatically, so you're not starting from scratch.

The Final Declaration also includes additional information that isn't part of quarterly updates, such as:

• Any adjustments or corrections to quarterly figures
• Capital allowances claims (e.g., replacement of domestic items relief)
• Losses brought forward from previous years
• Any other property-related reliefs or allowances
• Confirmation of accounting basis (cash or accruals)

Once you submit the Final Declaration, HMRC calculates your final tax liability for the year. This is when you find out exactly how much tax you owe (or are owed, if you've overpaid through payments on account). The normal Self Assessment payment deadlines apply — 31 January for the balancing payment and first payment on account, and 31 July for the second payment on account.

How Latch Makes Your First Submission Simple

Latch is designed to meet HMRC MTD requirements and takes the stress out of your first quarterly submission. The free plan includes everything you need for core MTD compliance: income and expense tracking, manual transaction categorisation, and quarterly update preparation. You can get started and be ready for your first submission without paying a penny.

For landlords with larger portfolios, paid plans (from £20/month) add powerful features like AI-powered transaction categorisation — which automatically sorts your expenses into the correct HMRC categories — unlimited property tracking, and advanced reporting. These features save significant time, especially if you're managing multiple properties across different locations.

Whether you're on the free plan or a paid plan, Latch guides you through each quarterly submission with clear prompts, pre-submission checks, and confirmation receipts. You'll always know what's due, when it's due, and whether your records are ready.

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