A firm with many Self Assessment clients needs to see the season at a glance, not one return at a time. The Individuals list and the firm dashboard both carry the Self Assessment position, and the return screen itself manages the tax years.
The Individuals list
Open Individuals and three columns show each client’s latest SA100 year, its status and the tax due from the last calculation. The status follows the year: Not started until something is keyed, In progress once the calculation has run, Waiting for HMRC while a submission is in flight, Rejected after an HMRC rejection, Filed once accepted — and Late is flagged on anything not filed once 31 January has passed. The year links straight to the return, the row’s menu has a Self Assessment entry, and the heading counts how many of the clients with a return are filed. Sort or search the status column to find who is still to do.
The firm dashboard
The dashboard’s Self Assessment card shows the latest season: how many returns are filed, in progress and not started (or overdue after the deadline), the next deadlines with any rejected returns first, and a reminder of the 31 January date. Before any client has a Self Assessment year the card shows the set-up steps instead. Click through to the Individuals list from the card.
Tax years on the return screen
The Tax Year selector on the return’s summary card switches between the client’s years, marking each as Accepted, Submitted or Rejected. When the next tax year opens for filing, a Start 2026-27 button appears underneath with two choices:
- Start and copy — brings forward what stays the same from year to year: the pages in use, the employer, business, partnership and property details, the losses carried forward (into their brought-forward boxes), unused residential finance costs, the student loan plan, and the bank and adviser details. No other money figure is copied. A business that ceased, a partnership left or a property business that stopped is not carried; a directorship that ended rolls forward as a plain employment.
- Start blank — a new year with only the personal details.
A year started by mistake can be removed with Remove this empty year, which appears only while the year has no figures on any page, no submissions, no attachments and no review requests, and only when the client has another year to fall back on.
Individuals filing their own return
An individual who signed up to Tax Optimiser themselves sees the same return screen from their own menu, with the same tax year controls. The firm-side list and dashboard are for accountant firms; client review is a firm feature too, so an individual declares and submits directly from the Submission section.
Back to the start: Self Assessment in Tax Optimiser (beta).
