{"id":8858,"date":"2023-07-20T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"im-25603"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"business-records-if-self-employed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oneaccounting.co.uk\/business-records-if-self-employed\/","title":{"rendered":"Business records if self-employed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are self-employed as a sole trader or as a partner in a business partnership, then you must keep suitable business records as well as separate personal records of your income.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For tax purposes, the business records must be held for at least 5 years from the 31 January submission deadline for the relevant tax year. For example, for the 2021-22 tax year, when&nbsp;online filing was due by 31 January 2023, you must keep your records until at least the end of January 2028. In certain situations, such as when a return is submitted late, the records must be held for longer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If you are self-employed, you should also keep a record of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>all sales and income<\/li>\n<li>all business expenses<\/li>\n<li>VAT records if you&rsquo;re registered for VAT<\/li>\n<li>PAYE records if you employ people<\/li>\n<li>records about your personal income<\/li>\n<li>grant details&nbsp;if you claimed through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme because of coronavirus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You don&#39;t need to keep the vast majority of your records in their original form. If you prefer, you can keep a copy of most of them in an alternative format&nbsp;as long as they can be recovered in a readable and uncorrupted format. For example, a scanned PDF document.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If your records are no longer available for any reason, you must try and recreate them letting HMRC know if the figures are estimated or provisional. There are penalties for failing to keep proper records or for keeping inaccurate records.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style='font-size:smaller' class='im_source'>Source: HM Revenue &#038; Customs   Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0100<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are self-employed as a sole trader or as a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Business records if self-employed - One Accounting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you are self-employed as a sole trader or as a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oneaccounting.co.uk\/business-records-if-self-employed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Business records if self-employed - 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