Start with the service you are commissioning
Choose whether your firm needs CRM and practice management, accounting alongside practice management, or a bespoke client platform with an agreed HMRC submission service. Maintaining a client record or completing bookkeeping does not, by itself, submit a tax return.
Your proposal should identify the tax services, tax years, client types, income sources and software connections covered. Confirm which parts are available in your deployment and which require configuration, development or a connected provider. A module name, product demonstration or Help Centre article is not evidence that every filing route is live.
Use the Pixie Accounting & Practice Management overview to compare the three options.
Treat VAT and Income Tax as separate workflows
Making Tax Digital for VAT: the agreed workflow must cover the relevant digital records and use compatible software to exchange information with HMRC. Retrieve the correct obligation and period before preparing the return. Compatibility for VAT does not establish compatibility for other taxes. See HMRC's VAT digital record requirements.
Making Tax Digital for Income Tax: quarterly updates summarise relevant business income and expenses; they are not tax returns. Accounting adjustments, other income and the annual tax return require their own supported workflow. Check that the selected software covers the client's circumstances and tax year. HMRC explains this distinction in its Income Tax software guidance.
Keep review and approval in the filing journey
Automation can prepare figures, move data and reduce repeated entry. It must preserve the required review and approval stages. HMRC requires VAT software to show a declaration and obtain confirmation before submitting. For an agent submission, the declaration confirms that the client received and approved the return information.
Agree who prepares the figures, who resolves queries and who may submit. Keep the approved version distinguishable from later edits. Confirm the applicable declaration wording and the approval evidence your commissioned workflow will retain. Read the HMRC VAT submission journey.
Preserve the digital record journey
Identify where the accounting records are maintained and how figures reach the filing software. Where multiple products form the relevant digital account, the required transfers must use compliant digital links. Supported imports, exports and APIs can form part of that journey; copying and pasting figures between products is not an accepted digital link.
Agree field mapping, reconciliation, source-document retention and how corrections flow through the connected systems. Check the result after an import rather than assuming that a successful transfer proves the figures are correct.
Separate a demonstration from production readiness
A sandbox test or customised demonstration shows a proposed journey. Before live use, obtain acceptance evidence for the actual deployment, client circumstances and agreed filing route. For direct API integrations, applicable production access, testing and fraud-prevention requirements must be satisfied.
- Confirm supported services, periods and client types.
- Verify client separation, staff permissions and authorised connections.
- Reconcile representative records and test corrections.
- Check declarations, approvals and the submitted version.
- Test expired authorisation, rejected data and unavailable services.
- Confirm response tracking, reconciliation and support ownership.
Use HMRC's VAT production guidance and its fraud-prevention requirements when agreeing acceptance criteria.
Check the result and handle exceptions
A queued job or an internal completion label is not an HMRC acknowledgement. The agreed service should distinguish prepared, approved, submitted, accepted and action-required states. Retain the returned reference and response details alongside the submitted version and approval record, as appropriate to the service.
If a request times out or fails, establish its status before retrying; avoid creating an uncertain duplicate. Reconcile accepted submissions with the available HMRC obligation or return information. Keep a named owner for rejected data and unresolved exceptions. The VAT API documentation describes the available submission and retrieval operations.
Check the current production-access position
Guidance reviewed 29 October 2026: HMRC's Income Tax service guide states that production-credential applications for new 2026–27 quarterly-update products are closed. This is a specific product-access restriction, not a statement that all Income Tax filing is unavailable.
Your proposal must identify an available, authorised filing route and the tax years it supports. Check the current HMRC Income Tax service guide before agreeing delivery dates. Compatibility is assessed for the relevant product and workflow; avoid treating it as blanket HMRC certification of every Pixie service.
Choose your next step
Read the guides to CRM and practice management, practice management with accounting, or a bespoke accounting-firm client platform. For the third option, contact Pixie for a customised demonstration and quotation based on your client portfolio and required tax services.
Official HMRC sources
Checked on 29 October 2026. Reconfirm the requirements and production-access conditions for your tax service before implementation.