Self Assessment in FreeAgent

This article explains how Self Assessment works in FreeAgent.

Self Assessment is the area of FreeAgent where income tax is worked out for a personal Self Assessment tax return. This will be based on your business's accounts if you're a sole trader, your salary and dividends if you're a director of a limited company and your property income and costs if you’re an unincorporated landlord.

In terms of calculating your tax bill, your tax code is only used to determine the amount of tax you pay on PAYE income through your payroll. Therefore, your Self Assessment tax bill doesn't take into account your tax code (except in respect of your PAYE income) as everybody is initially awarded the same personal allowance. The personal allowance begins to taper as your income goes above £100,000 but FreeAgent will include that in your tax calculation.

This article contains the following topics. Select a link to skip straight to that section:

• Navigating to your Self Assessment tax return
• Completing your Self Assessment tax return
• Supported Self Assessment pages in FreeAgent
• Unsupported Self Assessment pages in FreeAgent
• Filing your Self Assessment tax return
• Making corrections to your Self Assessment tax return
• Exporting your Self Assessment tax return

Navigating to your Self Assessment tax return

Navigate to the ‘Taxes’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Self Assessment’ from the drop-down menu.

Select the relevant user from the drop-down menu (if applicable). FreeAgent calculates Self Assessment for all users except those allocated the role of 'Accountant'.

Select the relevant tax year. The year in which your FreeAgent start date falls is the earliest tax year you can access in FreeAgent. Please note that FreeAgent's Self Assessment functionality for unincorporated landlords will only be available from the 2022/23 tax year onwards.

If you don't see a particular later tax year, this may be because FreeAgent has been unable to generate it because there is an account lock in place. You will need to remove the account lock and then return to the Self Assessment page to allow FreeAgent to create the return for this tax year.

Completing your Self Assessment tax return

Use the tabs at the top of the return to navigate between the pages of your tax return. Incomplete sections are marked with an orange exclamation mark.

There are six tabs for all account types: Main Return, Employment, Self-Employment, UK Property, Tax Adjustments, and Your Tax Breakdown.

The colours and box numbers mirror those on your tax return so that it's easy to put the right number in the right box when you're completing your tax return. To be able to file through FreeAgent, you must select ‘No’ for any sections of the tax return that you don't need to fill in.

Find out more about how to complete your Self Assessment tax return.

You can see a step-by-step breakdown of your Self Assessment calculation by selecting the ‘Your Tax Breakdown’ tab. The information displayed in the Your Tax Breakdown area serves as the equivalent of an SA302 form. Many mortgage providers accept this information as part of a self-employed mortgage application. You can print this information directly from FreeAgent.

Supported Self Assessment pages in FreeAgent

You can complete the following pages of the Self Assessment tax return in FreeAgent. Please note that some pages aren't supported.

Main Return

The Main Return page is where to record your personal details, general sources of income such as bank interest and dividends from shares, and certain tax reliefs that you may be entitled to. It’s also where to record certain charges that may apply to you, such as student loan repayments and the High Income Child Benefit Charge.

Employment

If you’re on a business’s payroll, the Employment page is where to report your wages and any benefits you received from the employer during the tax year. If you have more than one job, you must fill in an Employment page for each job.

You might find the following articles useful for completing the Employment page in FreeAgent:

• The Employment page of the Self Assessment tax return for sole traders
• The Employment page of the Self Assessment tax return for limited company directors
• The Employment page of the Self Assessment tax return for unincorporated landlords

Self-employment

You should use the Self-employment page to report your business profits. If you’re a sole trader, FreeAgent can populate some of the Self-employment page with the financial data that you enter throughout the year.

If you’re a limited company director or unincorporated landlord, you’ll only need to complete the Self-employment page if you have a self-employed business in addition to the income you receive from the company of which you’re a director, or from the properties that you rent out.

You might find the following articles useful for completing the Self-employment page in FreeAgent:

• The short version of the Self-employment page for sole traders
• The long version of the Self-employment page for sole traders
• The short version of the Self-employment page for limited company directors
• The long version of the Self-employment page for limited company directors
• The short version of the Self-employment page for unincorporated landlords
• The long version of the Self-employment page for unincorporated landlords

UK Property (SA105)

You should use the UK property page to report property income if you’re a UK resident landlord. If you have income for property outside the UK you won’t be able to report it here - unless it’s for furnished holiday lettings (FHLs) in the European Economic Area (EEA) for tax years up to and including 2024/25.

If you’re an unincorporated landlord, use the UK property page to report your property income and costs. If you have a landlord account with us, FreeAgent will automatically fill in some of this page with the financial data that you enter throughout the year.

You might find the following articles useful for completing the UK Property page in FreeAgent:

• The UK property page for sole traders and limited company directors
• The UK property page for unincorporated landlords

Tax Adjustments

The Tax Adjustments page contains an overview of your tax liability and the National Insurance contributions that you owe. Use this page to record the details of any tax adjustments that you want to make, for example applying for a reduction in your payments on account.

Unsupported Self Assessment pages in FreeAgent

The following pages of the Self Assessment tax return are not supported in FreeAgent:

• Foreign Income, which includes foreign withholding tax and also property rental income from overseas former FHLs from 6th April 2025 onwards
• Capital Gains summary
• Trust Income
• Residence, remittance basis etc
• Anything on the SA101 'Additional Information' form e.g. redundancy pay
• Additional self-employment pages

If you need to complete any of the above pages you won't be able to use FreeAgent to file your Self Assessment tax return.

Filing your Self Assessment tax return

Before you go to file your tax return, make sure that you’ve explained all of your bank transactions for the tax year that you’re filing for. If you have employees, you should have either filed month 12 payroll for the tax year in question or marked month 12 as filed.

Once you've completed all the necessary pages, select 'Prepare to file online' to file the return to HMRC.

Once this is complete and confirmed with HMRC, the return status will be changed to 'Filed with HMRC'. The IR Mark on your tax return in FreeAgent shows that HMRC's systems have received the filed return.

It can take a couple of days for HMRC's systems to update to show the return as filed in the online tax account, but the ‘Filed with HMRC’ indication and the IR Mark are proof of filing that you can show to HMRC if needed.

If there is a problem with filing the return, you will see an error message at the top of each page and the status will be marked as 'Rejected'.

Once you've filed your Self Assessment return and paid your tax bill to HMRC, find out how to explain a Self Assessment payment to HMRC.

Making corrections to your Self Assessment tax return

If you’ve filed your Self Assessment tax return but you need to make a correction, you'll need to unlock the return in FreeAgent and make the necessary changes to any of the pages. Please check with your accountant before you do so.

Once you have finished editing, you’ll need to complete the filing process again to submit your accurate amended return to HMRC. If you do not complete the filing process, the return will remain marked as ‘Unfiled’ in FreeAgent.

Exporting your Self Assessment tax return

To export the Self Assessment tax return, select ‘Export’ and then choose either ‘Self Assessment return’ or 'Tax Calculation (SA302)’ from the drop-down menu.