Reconciliation: checking your records against HMRC

Reconciliation is a checking screen. It compares your own cumulative (year-to-date) records in the app against what was actually submitted to HMRC for each quarter, and labels every quarter with a clear status such as Matches HMRC, Discrepancy, or Not yet filed. It is a quick way to confirm your filings are in step with your records, and to catch anything you changed after filing.

What reconciliation is

Reconciliation (/tax/reconciliation) answers one question: do my records in the app still match what HMRC actually received? It compares two things for each quarter of the tax year:

• Your own cumulative (year-to-date) figures, built automatically from the transactions you have recorded in the app.
• The figures that were actually submitted to HMRC in your quarterly updates.

Because both sides come from the records you keep in the app, this page is also plain evidence that your figures live in the app itself. You do not type any totals here, and there is no separate spreadsheet of figures to keep in step: everything is derived from your recorded transactions. If you brought figures in from a bank export or spreadsheet, you did that with Import transactions from CSV, which brings each row in as a real transaction, so it is already part of these totals.

Note: Quarterly updates under Making Tax Digital are cumulative, so each one carries your whole tax year to date and a later update supersedes an earlier one. Reconciliation is built around that model. See How cumulative updates work, and fixing mistakes.

The statuses

Each quarter is shown with one of these statuses:

• Matches HMRC: your in-app year-to-date figure agrees with what HMRC has, within a tolerance of 0.01 (one penny).
• Discrepancy: your latest filed quarter differs from HMRC by more than 0.01 in a way that needs attention, for example an amount was lowered or recategorised after that quarter was filed.
• Rolls into next: you have added records since you filed, so your books are now ahead of HMRC. For most quarters this is picked up automatically by your next cumulative update; for the final quarter (Q4) you resend it before your Final Declaration.
• Superseded: an earlier filed quarter whose figures have already been absorbed by a later cumulative update, so it no longer needs action.
• Not yet filed: no quarterly update has been sent to HMRC for that quarter yet, so there is nothing on the HMRC side to compare against.

Who can use it

Viewing reconciliation is available to any signed-in user on Free and MTD Lite, with no upgrade needed.

The live Re-verify against HMRC button, which fetches HMRC's stored figures in real time, needs your HMRC account connected. If it is not connected, the button shows Connect HMRC instead. (The underlying entitlement is the same one that lets you file, and both Free and MTD Lite have it.)

How to use it

1. Open Reconciliation from the sidebar (nav label Reconciliation, at /tax/reconciliation). The page is marked as needing an HMRC connection for the live check.
2. Review each quarter's status, such as Matches HMRC, Discrepancy, or Not yet filed.
3. Click Re-verify against HMRC to pull HMRC's latest cumulative figures for the year and compare them against your records. The button shows Verifying… while it runs. If your HMRC account is not connected, this button reads Connect HMRC: connect first, then come back.
4. Use Refresh at any time to reload the on-page reconciliation data from your own records.

Tip: Re-verify whenever you have just submitted a quarter or edited transactions for a quarter you already filed. It confirms, against HMRC's own stored figures, that the two sides now agree.

Fixing a discrepancy

A Discrepancy almost always means your records changed after the quarter was filed: you added a transaction, edited an amount, or recategorised something. The fix follows the cumulative model, so you do not amend a past quarter directly:

1. Open the quarter showing the Discrepancy and correct or add the relevant transactions so your records are right.
2. Submit your next outstanding quarterly update, or re-send the latest one where that applies. Because each update is cumulative, it carries the corrected year-to-date totals automatically. See Submit a quarterly update and How cumulative updates work, and fixing mistakes.
3. Click Re-verify against HMRC to confirm the quarter now shows Matches HMRC.

Important: Some figures are handled outside quarterly totals, so a difference is not always a mistake. For example, residential finance costs (mortgage interest under Section 24) are treated separately. If you are unsure whether a difference is expected, check with HMRC or your accountant.

If something goes wrong

• Re-verify against HMRC is replaced by Connect HMRC. No HMRC account is connected. Connect it from Settings (see Connect your HMRC account), then return and try again.
• The verify check fails. The app could not retrieve HMRC's figures just then. It shows a friendly message under a Verification failed heading (such as Unable to retrieve HMRC data at this time) rather than a technical error. Wait a moment and click Re-verify against HMRC again, or use Refresh to reload the page.
• A quarter stays as Discrepancy after I re-verify. Make sure you actually re-submitted the quarter after editing, not just changed the transaction. Reconciliation compares against what HMRC received, so the corrected totals only show as Matches HMRC once a fresh cumulative update has been sent.
• A quarter shows Not yet filed. That is expected until you file it. Submit the quarterly update for that period, then re-verify.

When all your quarters read Matches HMRC, your records and HMRC's are in step, which is exactly where you want to be before you finalise the year with your Final Declaration.

Frequently asked questions

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