Setting Up Sole Traders & Self-Assessment Clients

Sole traders can be set up in different ways in PracticeFlow depending on the services you provide.

Option A: If the client only requires a tax return, whether under Self-Assessment or MTD for Income Tax, set them up as an Individual. The Smart Tasks for these services can be managed at the Individual level.

Option B: If you also provide business services such as VAT, CIS, Payroll or Bookkeeping, you will need to set the client up as an Organisation (type: Sole Trader). These services rely on Organisation-level data and Smart Tasks are triggered from the Organisation record.

Under Option B, you can manage the personal tax return in one of two ways:

-          Keep everything in a single record by managing the tax return within the Sole Trader client, or

-          Create a separate Individual client for the tax return and link it to the Organisation. This allows personal tax work to be managed separately from business services.

Finally, if personal tax and other work are combined under the Organisation (Sole Trader), but you still need to store additional personal details such as NI number or date of birth, you can create an Individual (Contact) and link it to the Sole Trader. This allows personal information to be recorded without generating Smart Tasks or counting towards client limits on plans with a fixed number of clients.