What can you
actually claim?

What does “wholly and exclusively” actually mean?

It is the test every claim has to pass: the cost must be incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of the trade. A van used only for jobs passes. A jacket you also wear at weekends does not.

Where a cost genuinely splits between business and personal use — a phone, a car, a room at home — you claim the business proportion and keep a note of how you worked it out. HMRC does not expect a stopwatch, but it does expect the method to be reasonable and consistent.

The failure mode is rarely greed. It is forgetting, then guessing a year later. Claim as you go and the proportion is a fact rather than a reconstruction.

What can a sole trader claim?

• —Stock, raw materials and anything bought for resale.
• —Tools, equipment and the software you run the business on.
• —Travel for work — fuel, train fares, parking, and the running costs of a business vehicle.
• —A proportion of phone and broadband, based on business use.
• —A proportion of home costs if you work from home, or the flat rate instead.
• —Business insurance, professional subscriptions and trade body memberships.
• —Accountancy, legal and other professional fees relating to the trade.
• —Advertising, a website, and the cost of quoting for work.
• —Bank charges and interest on a business account or business borrowing.
• —Protective clothing and branded uniform — not ordinary clothes you could wear anywhere.
• —Training that maintains or updates the skills you already trade on.

How do simplified expenses work?

Simplified expenses let you use flat rates instead of working out actual costs, which is often both easier and better for anyone driving a personal car.

For vehicles, the mileage rate has long been 45p per business mile for the first 10,000 miles in a tax year and 25p per mile after that, for cars and vans. You choose per vehicle, and once you have used the mileage rate for a vehicle you keep using it for as long as you have it.

For working from home, a flat monthly rate based on the hours you work there saves apportioning the electricity bill. For premises you both live in and trade from, there is an equivalent adjustment.

The rates are set by HMRC and they do change. Check the current figures on gov.uk before you file.

What can you not claim?

• —Client entertaining. It is a genuine business cost and it is specifically not deductible.
• —Ordinary clothing, even if you only ever wear it for work.
• —Your own wages, or drawings taken out of the business.
• —Fines and penalties, including parking tickets picked up on a job.
• —Travel between home and a regular place of work.
• —Anything personal that happened to be paid from the business account.

Which allowable expenses do people miss?

• —The trading allowance — the first £1,000 of trading income can be covered by an allowance instead of expenses. If your costs are under £1,000, the allowance may be worth more than claiming.
• —Use of home, when you only do the paperwork there and assume it does not count.
• —Bank and card processing fees, small individually and material across a year.
• —Software subscriptions bought on a personal card and never put through the books.
• —Capital allowances on tools and equipment, which are claimed differently from day-to-day costs.
• —Pre-trading expenses — costs incurred in the seven years before you started trading can often be treated as incurred on day one.

How does Bizzle keep the claim complete?

Every card payment on the bank feed is matched to a receipt, and anything unmatched is surfaced rather than silently ignored. Photograph a receipt and it is extracted and filed; forward a supplier email and the same thing happens.

Mileage is logged against the job rather than remembered at year end, and Bizzle applies the current HMRC rate. Recurring costs are learned once, so a subscription is categorised correctly every month after you answer for it the first time.

The result is not a bigger claim than you are entitled to. It is the claim you were always entitled to, with the evidence still attached.