Spreadsheets work.
Until they do not.

What is actually different?

Spreadsheets are not a joke. Plenty of profitable businesses have been run out of one, they cost nothing, and they do exactly what you tell them.

What they cannot do is know anything. A spreadsheet does not know an invoice went unpaid, does not chase it, does not read a receipt, and does not notice that the same supplier has billed you twice.

The forcing function is Making Tax Digital. As MTD for Income Tax rolls out, digital records in compatible software stop being optional for those in scope, and quarterly submissions turn one annual reconstruction into four.

How do they compare, line by line?

Where spreadsheets is the better choice

• —Free is free. For a business turning over very little, that is a real and rational argument.
• —Total flexibility. A spreadsheet can model something strange in ten minutes that would take a software vendor a year to support.
• —No learning curve, if you already know spreadsheets — and most people running a small business do.
• —For side income under the trading allowance, a spreadsheet may genuinely be all you ever need.

So which should you pick?

Stay on spreadsheets if turnover is small, records are simple, and you are outside the scope of Making Tax Digital.

Move when the chasing stops happening, the year end takes a weekend, or MTD brings you into quarterly filing — which is the point where free stops being cheap.