Freelancers and landlords: compare MTD accountants in Manchester

The city has an unusual mix. Of the 2,380 sole traders registered for VAT or PAYE, 950 are in professional, scientific and technical work: consultants, designers, developers, architects and the like. That is 39.9%, where across the North West it is 11.5%. And at the 2021 Census, 69,403 households, almost a third, rented from a private landlord.

Put those together and the combination is easy to picture: a freelancer who also lets a flat, or a couple who bought a terrace to rent out and now each have a share of the income. Neither income on its own may look big enough to matter. Making Tax Digital adds them up.

Each income has its own updates. The freelance business and the property business are separate, so you send two quarterly summaries on the same four dates. Most MTD software handles both in one account.

Joint lets are lighter. If you own the property with someone else, you record only your share, you do not need to link to their records, and you can leave the joint expenses until the year end. The rent still goes in every quarter.

Small portfolios get simpler categories. If your UK property turnover is under £90,000, you can use a shorter list of expense categories. Our landlords guide covers this, and the self-employed guide covers the freelance side.

The ONS survey estimates about 34,200 self-employed people, 11.3% of those in work, give or take 3.1 points, close to the North West’s 11.8%. Information and communication businesses make up 7.5% of the city’s 24,550 firms, against 5.1% regionally.

There are 410 accountancy, bookkeeping and tax firms, about 83 self-employed people for each by our calculation. Choice is good, but not every firm takes on sole traders and landlords for Making Tax Digital, so ask before you sign.

Many of the city’s landlords bought with a mortgage, and the interest is usually their biggest cost. Since April 2020 individual landlords of residential property cannot deduct mortgage interest and other finance costs as an ordinary expense. Instead, they get a tax reduction worth the basic rate of Income Tax on those costs.

For Making Tax Digital that means finance costs go into your software in their own category rather than with repairs, agent fees and insurance. The quarterly updates show them, and the tax reduction is worked out when your year is finalised. It is worth getting this right from the first update, because a higher-rate taxpayer who records interest as a normal expense will see a misleading profit figure all year.

Plenty of Manchester lets are owned by couples. If you are married or in a civil partnership and own a property jointly, HMRC normally taxes the rent on an even split between you, whatever the deeds say. You can change that to your actual shares by sending HMRC Form 17, with evidence that your beneficial interests are unequal.

The split matters for Making Tax Digital, because each of you is tested separately. Take a flat bringing in £20,000 of rent a year. On an even split, each partner has £10,000 of property income, and only someone whose other self-employment or property income takes them over the line comes in. If one partner also freelances, they may be in while the other is not.

A lot of the city’s rented homes are leasehold flats in apartment blocks. That brings costs a house landlord may not have: an annual or half-yearly service charge, ground rent, and sometimes a one-off bill for major works. These are expenses of the property business, recorded when you pay them, and they tend to arrive in lumps rather than evenly across the year.

That means a quarterly update can show a much lower profit in the quarter the service charge is paid than in the others. That is normal. What matters is that each cost is in the quarter it happened, so the year adds up correctly when you finalise it.

If an agent manages your flat, work from their monthly statements. Record the full rent the tenant paid as income, and the agent’s fees, any repairs they arranged and anything else they deducted as separate expenses, rather than recording only the net amount they paid you. The full rent is what counts towards the threshold.

City-centre flats are often let short-term, to visitors and contractors, through booking platforms. These used to be able to qualify for a separate furnished holiday lettings tax regime. That regime was abolished from April 2025, so short-term lets are now treated as part of your ordinary property business, with the same finance cost rules as any other residential let.

For Making Tax Digital, short-let income counts towards the threshold like any other rent, before cleaning, platform fees and management costs. Booking platforms report hosts to HMRC, so your records should match what the platform shows. Record each payout gross, with the platform’s commission as an expense.

Freelancers in the city often work for clients outside the UK. If you are UK resident, that income counts like any other self-employment income. Record it in pounds, using the amount that reached you or a consistent exchange rate, and keep the invoice in the original currency with your records.

Not everything a freelancer does is self-employment. Contracts paid through an umbrella company, or a role taken on as an employee, are taxed through PAYE and do not count towards the Making Tax Digital threshold. Keep a simple list of which work is which, because the threshold only looks at the self-employed side.

With two income sources, the risk is ending up with two sets of advice: a bookkeeper who knows freelancers and an agent who knows property, and nobody looking at the whole picture. The threshold, the finance cost relief and any split with a partner all depend on both sides at once.

Among the city’s 410 accountancy firms, look for one that already handles both freelancers and landlords, and ask whether its fee covers two businesses’ quarterly updates or charges per source. Ask too whether it will look at Form 17 for jointly owned property if your shares are unequal. One adviser who sees everything is usually cheaper than two who see half each.

The Business & IP Centre on the second floor of Central Library, St Peter’s Square, is run by the city council with the British Library. It offers free access to business and intellectual property databases, workshops, and one-to-one support including patent and IP clinics. A British Library report published by the council credited it with helping to create 2,170 new businesses between April 2020 and March 2023.

For freelancers setting up properly, it is a useful first stop for market research and protecting your work. It does not do your tax, but it can help you turn a freelance side line into a business with a plan, which is a good moment to set up your Making Tax Digital software as well.