Connect your existing accounting system to HMRC MTD
If your existing accounting system is not MTD-compliant, there are two ways to create a compliant digital link to HMRC using My Tax Digital.
File-based digital link (bridging)
If your system can export figures to a spreadsheet, populate the relevant bridging template — SA103 (Self Employment), SA105 (UK Property), SA106 (Foreign Property), or the VAT template (nine boxes) for VAT — with cell references back to your own export file, then upload it via My Tax Digital's import screens. Because the figures are linked by formula rather than retyped, this satisfies HMRC's digital link requirement. See the Self Assessment and UK Property guides for the exact import steps and template downloads, and MTD VAT for VAT.
The Income Tax Bridging import can't be tried until you have signed up for MTD for Income Tax with HMRC and completed HMRC authorisation, so complete that first if you are testing an integration.
Direct integration and APIs
My Tax Digital does not currently offer a published or self-serve API for other accounting software to send data to it or through it to HMRC. For most systems, the file-based digital link above is the supported route and meets HMRC's digital link requirement without any development work.
For developers: import formats
The templates below can be downloaded from https://mytaxdigital.co.uk/app/templates/.
| Import | Template | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Self Employment (Bridging) | MTD_SA103_template.xlsx |
Quarterly cumulative figures |
| UK Property (Bridging) | MTD_SA105_template.xlsx |
Quarterly cumulative figures |
| Foreign Property (Bridging) | MTD_SA106_template.xlsx |
Quarterly cumulative figures |
| VAT return (Bridging) | VAT_Template.xlsx and VAT_Template.csv |
The nine VAT boxes |
| Transactions (Accounting mode) | Transactions_Template.xlsx and Transactions_Template.csv |
One row per transaction. Date, description and amount are required at a minimum |
- Income Tax Bridging imports read fixed cell positions, not column headings. Figures must sit in the same cells as the SA103, SA105 or SA106 template, so a custom workbook needs to reproduce its layout. If nothing is found at those positions, the import shows a No figures found warning.
- VAT imports read the nine VAT figures from the template layout, and the import screen lets you change the sheet and cell references if the wrong cells are picked.
- CSV and other spreadsheet formats are accepted by the import screens as well as XLSX, provided the figures are at the same cell positions. Only XLSX versions of the SA103, SA105 and SA106 templates are published, so there is no CSV template to download for them.
- Transactions imports (Accounting mode) map your file's columns to transaction fields on screen, so they don't depend on cell positions. See Transactions.
- Figures should be entered as positive amounts and each quarterly Income Tax upload must be cumulative from the start of the tax year (see Self Assessment).
