Seeking confirmation on moving to Affinity / Multi-profile setup for MTD compliance

Support
1

Greetings

I am currently a Power User on my main account (Business A - IT Consulting), which I just renewed for the year on 1st March 2026. My transaction volumes on this account are very low now (roughly 10–12 sales invoices and under a dozen purchase receipts per month). I operate as a Sole Trader under a trading name, so my personal name is the underlying legal entity.

I also have an existing, ongoing Sole Trader venture doing energy & telecoms sales as an independent agent under my own name. I have previously tracked this in Excel, but to prepare for Making Tax Digital (MTD), I now want to bring this data into QuickFile using an Affinity dashboard.

Please note that none of my businesses are VAT registered.

I would appreciate your confirmation on my structural plan and the billing details:

  1. Business B (Energy & Telecoms Sales): I plan to open a brand-new, standalone standard QuickFile account for this business using a secondary email address.

  2. Business C (Second Commission Stream): I am an authorised independent distributor for two separate Limited companies (neither of which are owned by me) and I receive commission payments from them. Business B gives me one commission payment per month (12 per year). Business C gives me one commission payment per month, though some months there is no commission at all (maximum 12 per year).

  3. Expenses: There are zero expenses to log for the Business C income stream, but for Business B I do have a few operational expenses per month.

  4. Using Project Tags: Since I am a Sole Trader getting paid under my own name for all my energy & telecoms activities, I understand that Business B and C are legally part of the same Sole Trader entity for HMRC. Instead of opening a 3rd QuickFile account, I intend to use Project Tags inside the Business B account to separate the two income streams.

  5. Linking via Affinity: I want to open a QuickFile Affinity dashboard using my Business A email address and link both Business A (IT) and Business B (Energy & Telecoms) to it so I can switch between them under one login.

Could you please confirm the following billing questions for me?

  • Double Billing Check: Since Business A has an active, prepaid Power User subscription running until March 2027, will Affinity recognise this and charge me £0/day for managing Business A on the dashboard for the remainder of its subscription?

  • Business B Cost: Since Business B’s transaction volume will be exceptionally low (around 24 commission entries a year total across both streams, plus just a few expenses a month), it will sit comfortably in the Extra Small (XS) tier. Will its daily micro-fees simply deduct from the free £10 trial credit given upon starting Affinity?

  • Future Savings: When my Business A Power User subscription expires in March 2027, if I choose not to renew it and instead let both profiles run natively under Affinity’s pay-as-you-go daily rates, will the 1,000-posting Power User restriction disappear for both profiles? Given my combined low volume, will this be more cost-effective than paying for a flat annual subscription?

Thank you for your help and for confirming if this is the best path forward for my MTD transition!

2

Hello @pdudhaiya

Yes, I’d recommend Affinity with two QuickFile profiles, not three.

Suggested setup:

  1. Business A – IT consulting

Keep the existing QuickFile account and link it to Affinity.

  1. Business B – energy/telecoms sole trader activity Create one new QuickFile account for this.

  2. Business C – second commission stream
    Do not create a third account. Use project tags or separate nominal codes inside the Business B account, as it appears to be part of the same sole trader trade/income source, rather than a separate legal entity. The user says both B and C are commission streams under their own name, with very low activity.

For MTD ITSA, the key point is that they need separate records where there are separate businesses/income sources. If B and C are really the same sole trader activity, one QuickFile account with project tagging is cleaner.

Could you please confirm the following billing questions for me?

MTD ITSA is a power user feature and does require a subscription.

If you are going to be using Affinity, this would work out cheaper as Affinity connected accounts do not require a power user subscription as they are charged a daily rate for being connected to Affinity.

If MTD ITSA is required on Affinity connected accounts, you would see this message of charge when enabling it.

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3

Hello Steve

Thank you so much the very quick reply. Appreciate it.

MTD is required for me. My accountant will do any final adjustments at the time of final tax returns. Business B & C are similar in that they pay me a monthly commissions. I call it B & C for accounting purposes but these two Ltd companies pay me a monthly commission to me as sole trader and an independent distributor for them. I do not own them or are employed by them.

So I will set another account for business B and use project tags for business C under it. Then I would manage them under the same Business A email account under Affinity dashboard. There would be two quarterly MTD submissions, is that correct so far?

So do I need to renew my power user subscription under any of the profiles next year or is Affinity pay as you just fine for MTD compliance?

Apologies if any questions are silly. This accounting stuff gets me really.

Many thanks.

Kind Regards

Paresh

4

Hello @pdudhaiya

So I will set another account for business B and use project tags for business C under it. Then I would manage them under the same Business A email account under Affinity dashboard. There would be two quarterly MTD submissions, is that correct so far?

Correct.

So do I need to renew my power user subscription under any of the profiles next year or is Affinity pay as you just fine for MTD compliance?

Power user subscriptions are not required for Affinity connected profiles, you can just enable the pay as you for MTD compliance as per my last emails screenshots.

5

Thank you so much for your help Steve. Excellent support.

Take care

Kind Regards

Paresh