Real-Time Reporting for Accountants: Keep Client Records Current

Real-time reporting is no longer a trend. It’s a timetable.

Most of the Autumn Budget’s announcements won’t hit until 2027 or later. It would be easy to file that under “a problem for future us”.

Taken together, though, the announcements describe the same direction of travel. Tax is becoming more digital, more frequent and more visible to HMRC. For accountants and bookkeepers, that changes the shape of the work.

Real time becomes the default

Making Tax Digital for income tax, e-invoicing and more frequent payments of tax all depend on up-to-date numbers. Individually, each is manageable. Together, they mean clients can no longer wait until the end of the year to find the paperwork.

The profession’s main task will shift from reconstructing the year to keeping it organised as it happens.

HMRC will know more, sooner.

HMRC is gathering more third-party data to help taxpayers get their tax right first time and to target compliance, and it is recruiting more compliance staff. A new duty to correct puts more responsibility on taxpayers to fix errors once they’ve been identified.

Taxpayers will increasingly be checking records that already exist, rather than building them from scratch. Accurate source data matters more when someone else can see the numbers too.

Cash flow becomes a regular conversation

Direct debits for VAT and PAYE, more frequent payments and stronger debt recovery all point to a world where tax is collected closer to when it’s due. Clients who treat tax as working capital will need help adjusting.

That is a chance for advisory work. A client who understands their position in real time is easier to advise, and more likely to call you before a problem arrives.

Software and workflow matter more

The e-invoicing timetable is tight for software developers and for the businesses that need to adopt it. Many clients invoice from spreadsheets today, and a change of tool is a change of habit. The government has also published responses to its call for evidence on business systems integration, and will work with industry to test ways to help businesses connect their systems.

Firms that already have a clear, consistent way of capturing and processing client data will find each change easier to absorb. Those relying on a different process for every client will feel the strain first.

What stays the same

Clients still need someone to interpret the rules, plan around them and tell them what matters. Automation and AI can take the first pass at the admin, and you stay in control of the judgement.

Using the time you’ve been given

A Budget of deferrals gives you a lead time. Three sensible uses:

1. Review how your firm collects client data, and where the manual steps are.
2. Pick the clients most likely to struggle with real-time reporting and start with them.
3. Decide now which conversations you want to lead, rather than react to.

Dext captures documents as they arrive, helps you keep clients’ records up to date and gives you a view of where each client stands. The Budget describes a more digital future, and Dext is built to help you get there with your processes in order.