The Partners step is the SA800’s Partnership Statement — the schedule that tells HMRC who the partners were and how the period’s result was divided between them. Each partner takes their share from here onto their own personal return.
Adding partners
Click Add partner for each partner. The table columns carry the statement’s box numbers: name (box 6), the partner’s own UTR (box 8), National Insurance number (box 10), and the shares of profit (box 11) and loss (box 12). The arrow at the end of each row opens the partner’s detail panel for their address and, where relevant, date appointed (box 7) or date ceased (box 9) — only enter those dates if they fall during 2024-25 or 2025-26.
Allocating profit shares
Enter each partner’s share of the trading result directly in the profit and loss columns, so agreements with fixed shares, salaries or interest on capital can be entered exactly as computed. The rule the statement must obey is simple: the partners’ shares must add up to the return — box 11 shares to the taxable profit (3.83), box 12 shares to the allowable loss (3.84).
The profit share % column does a different job: it is how everything else on the statement is divided — property income, interest, dividends, foreign income and tax, disposal proceeds, residential finance costs, partnership charges, and CIS deductions unless you type each partner’s CIS share in the last column. Set the percentages to how those items are actually shared; they must total 100% whenever the return has any of them. Each share is rounded to the penny and the last partner takes any odd penny, so the partners always add back to the total.
A totals row under the table adds up the percentages and the profit, loss and CIS shares as you type, and shows each against the figure it must match — 100%, box 3.83, box 3.84 and box 3.97 — turning red where they differ. A warning above the table quotes the gap as well. Neither blocks saving — you can leave the allocation half-done and come back — but the return cannot be submitted until the shares match boxes 3.83/3.84 exactly.
The checks that stop an HMRC rejection
Two per-partner checks run as you type:
- Partner UTR — required for every partner, and validated against the same HMRC check-digit rule as the partnership’s own UTR. A blank UTR is flagged and blocks submission; one bad partner UTR causes HMRC to reject the whole return (error 8205), so the field turns red immediately.
- NINO — optional, but if you enter one it must be in the standard format (two letters, six digits and an optional final letter); spaces and lower case are tidied up for you. A malformed NINO blocks submission. No NINO is sent for a partner that is a company.
A partner who left before they joined (a date ceased earlier than the date appointed) is refused too, as HMRC would reject it.