Sole trader bookkeeping,
done as you go.

What records does a sole trader have to keep?

HMRC does not prescribe a format. It asks that your records be complete and readable, and that you can back up the figures on your return with evidence. In practice that means every sale you made and every expense you are claiming, each traceable to something that proves it happened.

• —All sales and income, including cash jobs and anything paid straight into a personal account.
• —All business expenses, with the receipt, invoice or bank line that evidences each one.
• —VAT records, if you are registered — including the VAT on each sale and purchase.
• —PAYE records, if you employ anyone, even part-time or casually.
• —Personal income, because Self Assessment covers the whole picture, not only the business.
• —Grants, support payments and anything else taxable that arrived during the year.

Cash basis or traditional accounting — which applies to you?

Cash basis means you record money when it actually moves: income on the day it lands, expenses on the day they leave. It is simpler, and it means you are never taxed on an invoice a customer has not paid yet. Cash basis is now the default for most unincorporated businesses, so you have to opt out to use anything else.

Traditional accounting — the accruals basis — records income when you invoice it and costs when you incur them, regardless of when the money moves. It gives a truer picture of a month's trading, and it is what you need if you hold stock.

If you are not sure which serves you better, that is a five-minute conversation with an accountant, not a decision to agonise over alone.

How long do you have to keep your records?

At least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for the relevant tax year. So records behind a return filed by 31 January 2027 need keeping until at least 31 January 2032.

Digital copies count. You are not required to keep a shoebox of fading thermal receipts, as long as the copy is legible and complete. Photograph it and file the image, and HMRC is satisfied.

If you file late, or HMRC opens an enquiry, keep everything until the matter is closed — the usual clock does not help you there.

What does bookkeeping actually cost you in time?

The bill from an accountant is the visible cost. The invisible one is bigger: the evenings spent categorising, the Sunday spent reconstructing a quarter, the invoice you never chased because you did not notice it had gone unpaid for six weeks.

Most sole traders do not have a bookkeeping problem so much as a keeping-up problem. The work is not hard. It is that it never stops, and it always waits until you are tired.

How much of it can Bizzle do without being asked?

Bizzle reads your bank feed daily and matches transactions against the invoices and receipts it already holds. Receipts arrive by photo, by email, or by forwarding a supplier's PDF, and each is extracted and filed against the right transaction automatically.

Underneath the automation is a real double-entry ledger, not a categorised list. Every entry traces back to the bank transaction and the source document behind it, which is what makes year end quick and an HMRC question answerable.

What it cannot work out, it asks you about — once — and your answer becomes a rule it keeps. The second lunch receipt from the same supplier does not need a second conversation.