What is the best MTD software for plumbers?

No single product is best, and HMRC recommends none. On 16 October 2026, 154 products on HMRC's finder were ready for sole traders. Which suits a plumber depends on who pays you and how your records arrive.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD) means keeping digital records, sending HMRC a summary every quarter and filing your tax return through software. For a plumber or heating engineer, three things decide the choice: whether you need a Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) feature at all, how card payments and merchant receipts get into the software, and how you handle the van. The rules below follow GOV.UK as checked on 18 October 2026.

Do you need a CIS feature?

If all your work is paid for by householders, you do not. HMRC's CIS guide, CIS 340, says private householders are not counted as contractors, so they are not covered by the scheme. A homeowner paying you direct for a boiler swap, a leak or a new bathroom takes no CIS deduction.

It changes when a builder or developer pays you. GOV.UK lists builders and property developers as mainstream contractors. CIS 340 adds that if you do covered work for a contractor who is working for a householder, the contractor must operate the scheme on what they pay you. CIS 340 says the scheme includes installing complete systems, such as heating, in new builds or in buildings being redeveloped. Repairing a system, such as fitting new taps, or extending one, such as adding an extra radiator, is not included. Our guide to whether CIS applies to plumbers and heating engineers goes through the jobs one by one.

If any deductions are taken, GOV.UK says to record your total pay before deductions as income and the deductions as CIS deductions. HMRC adds the CIS deductions it holds to your MTD tax return, and you must check them before you submit.

Getting card payments and merchant receipts in

GOV.UK describes three ways software creates records: linking to your business bank account, scanning receipts and invoices, or typing entries in. With a bank feed, you may need to add the Self Assessment category, and some transactions may not appear in full and need creating separately. Each record needs an amount, a date and a category.

Two points matter if you take card payments. GOV.UK says software you do not use to create your digital records, such as one that takes bookings or a till system that records sales receipts, does not need to be digitally linked to your MTD software. And where you only know your income after costs, GOV.UK says to find out the full amount, then record the income and the costs separately. In our reading, the same approach fits a card-reader payout that arrives with fees already taken off: record the full takings and the fees separately.

For merchant receipts, you still need to keep the originals or copies, such as invoices and bank statements. If your self-employment turnover is under £90,000, GOV.UK lets you record each item simply as income or an expense. If you keep a spreadsheet, bridging software can connect to it and send your updates, but once a record has been sent to HMRC you must not copy and paste it to move it.

The van and the cash basis

Since the 2024-25 tax year, the cash basis has been the default for sole traders: you record income when you are paid and costs when you pay them, whether by cash, card or cheque. Under the cash basis, GOV.UK lists vans among the things you use in your business that count as allowable expenses.

The other route is the flat mileage rate. For 2026-27, GOV.UK's rate for vans is 55p a mile for the first 10,000 business miles, then 25p. You cannot use it for a van you have already claimed capital allowances for or included as an expense, and once you use it for a vehicle, you must keep using it for that vehicle. GOV.UK says that if you are sure you will use simplified expenses, you do not need digital records of your actual costs, so a mileage log may matter more than receipt capture for the van.

What HMRC's finder showed on 16 October 2026

We read every product page on HMRC's finder for our MTD software census. These are counts of products ready now, out of the 154 ready for sole traders. On the finder, "in development" means the provider has committed to building the feature in time for the 2026 to 2027 tax return.

The finder does not say which products have a bank feed, receipt scanning or a mileage log. Check those on the vendor's own site.

What this means for you

If nearly all your work is for householders, any of the 142 products for individuals could cover the MTD side, so choose on how your records arrive. If you subcontract for builders, even for part of the year, pick one that shows CIS as ready now, not in development. The MTD software guide for builders lists some CIS-ready products, and the sole trader guide compares prices. GOV.UK says free products may have limits, such as a set number of transactions.

Steps to choose your software

1. Use the free MTD check to see when MTD starts for you.
2. Look at last year's work: how much was paid by householders and how much by builders or developers with CIS deductions.
3. Decide how records will arrive: bank feed, receipt scanning, typed entries or a spreadsheet.
4. Filter HMRC's finder for sole trader, then CIS if you need it, and the record type you chose.
5. Check the vendor's site for a bank feed, receipt capture, a mileage log and the price after any offer.
6. Try it with a month of real card payments, merchant receipts and van miles before your first quarter.

The trades section has more guides for plumbers, including what expenses a self-employed plumber can claim.