Bart is here: the simplest way to do your tax under MTD

Why we built Bart

MTD for Income Tax is, genuinely, a better system than annual Self Assessment. Four smaller check-ins throughout the year means less year-end panic, a clearer picture of your tax position, and fewer nasty surprises in January.

But most software available for MTD is built for businesses — with employees, accountants, payroll, and complex multi-currency needs. It's expensive, complicated, and full of features that a sole trader will never use.

We built Bart to be exactly what a sole trader needs, and nothing more. Simple setup, automatic record keeping, quarterly submissions handled in minutes. No accounting degree required.

What Bart does

From day one, Bart handles your entire MTD obligation:

• Open banking connection — Bart connects to your bank via Finexer (FCA regulated, read-only access). Your transactions are imported automatically, every day.
• AI categorisation — powered by Anthropic Claude, Bart sorts your income and expenses into HMRC's categories automatically. Review and correct in seconds, not hours.
• Quarterly updates — when it's time, Bart prepares your quarterly submission and sends it directly to HMRC. You approve, we file.
• End of Period Statement and Final Declaration — Bart handles your year-end submissions too, replacing the old Self Assessment return.
• Mobile — available on iOS and Android, so you can review transactions wherever you are.

How it's different

We know there are other options. Here's what makes Bart different:

• Built for sole traders, not businesses. No double-entry bookkeeping, no payroll module, no features that don't apply to you.
• Designed around your workflow. Check in when it suits you — when new transactions come in and you want to verify the categorisation. Bart handles the continuous work in the background.
• Pricing that makes sense. A simple monthly subscription — far less than enterprise accounting software, with no hidden fees or annual lock-in.
• AI that actually helps. Our categorisation learns from how you run your business, getting more accurate over time.

Getting started

Setting up Bart takes about 5 minutes:

1. Sign up at hellobart.com — no card required for the free trial
2. Connect your bank account via open banking — secure, read-only, takes 60 seconds
3. Review your transactions — Bart imports your history and categorises everything. Correct any miscategorisations with a tap.
4. You're done — your first quarterly submission is due 5 August 2026, and Bart will have your Quarter 1 records ready well before then

Start now — before the first deadline

MTD went live on 6 April 2026. That means your Quarter 1 period (6 April–5 July) is already running — and your first quarterly update is due by 5 August. There's still time to get set up properly, and Bart will import your transactions from 6 April so nothing slips through.

If you've been putting it off, today is the right moment to start. It should be straightforward. It should take minutes. And it should cost far less than the alternative.

The team behind Bart

We're a small team that cares deeply about making tax less painful for the millions of self-employed people in the UK. MTD is a significant change — we think it can also be a positive one, with the right tools.