How do I enter a payment received in 2026-27, for work done in 2025-26, onto my QuickFile account? I only started using MTD and QuickFile on 06.04.2026.
How did you set things up when you started with QuickFile? Have you imported any kind of trial balance from your previous accounts or have you just started over from zero?
Normally if you are switching accounting systems you’d use a trial balance to bring in your nominal account balances from your previous books, which would mean that the money you are owed for previous years’ invoices would be sitting as a debit balance on your debtors control account. In that case you could just tag the received payment as “something not on the list” to the debtors control account.
If you didn’t import your previous nominal balances, but instead just set opening balances on your bank accounts, then QuickFile doesn’t know anything about your prior assets and liabilities, so exactly how you tag the payment now depends on where you put the double entry for those bank opening balances.
Before using QuickFile I didn’t use any digital platform, just spreadsheets.
I’ve entered the details of a bank account, but haven’t entered a balance there, I haven’t entered anything there.
Are you able to tell me how to enter this payment? Thank you for responding!
Ideally what you want to do is set things up so that your opening numbers in QuickFile match your closing balance sheet from your old accounts, at least in terms of money you owe to other people, money people owe to you, and the balance in your bank account(s). If you’ve made the switch at an accounting year end then your profit and loss accounts will be starting from zero for the new year anyway.
Assuming you’re a sole trader rather than a limited company, the most complete but also most involved approach would be
- for each invoice that you issued in the previous accounting year but which is still outstanding at the year end, create a matching “sales” invoice record in QuickFile, with the invoice date of the real invoice you made in your old system
- likewise, for any purchase invoices that you received from suppliers in the previous accounting year but hadn’t paid by the year end, create a matching “purchase” record in QuickFile, again dated to match the supplier’s invoice date (which will be in the previous year)
- for each bank account, use the “new transaction” button to enter a money in transaction (or out, if it’s an overdrawn account like a credit card) dated on the last day of the previous accounting year, to set the balance of that account to match what your actual bank statement said on the relevant date. Click the “tag me” button, select “something not on the list” and tag the transaction to the “retained profit & undistributed reserves” code
- run the “year end process” for the old financial year, which will zero out the P&L values from the sales & purchases you created in steps 1 & 2, and put the balance on the same retained profit code.
At this point your QuickFile is basically set up to carry on from where you left off in your old system. When you receive/make payment for the sales/purchases from the previous year you can handle those exactly the same way as you would for sales/purchases that were recorded in QuickFile in the first place, either by tagging bank transactions as “payment from a customer” or “to a supplier” if you have opted to use a bank feed, or using the “log payment” option on each invoice if you haven’t.
If you can’t be bothered setting up all the individual sales/purchase records for things that were unpaid from last year, then you could just make a single sales “invoice” in step 1 to a dummy client for the total unpaid sales, and a single purchase in step 2 to a dummy supplier for the total unpaid purchases, then when you receive/make payment you’d record that as multiple partial payments against the single invoice rather than paying each separate invoice in full.