The AI Efficiency for Accountants Newsletter V1 E1 by Marcie D Terman | Business Development Director
10 August, 2026
I have spoken to accountants who say they are prepared to cut loose clients who repeatedly fail to provide the documents they need. I have spoken to others taking a more conciliatory view, helping clients adjust, absorbing the extra work and doing the best they can while everyone gets used to a very different way of working.
Whatever your position, one thing seems certain: MTD is going to change the shape of an accountancy practice’s workload.
The first quarterly deadline was not simply a test of whether figures could be submitted to HMRC. It tested whether clients had kept their records up to date, whether they understood what was expected of them, whether missing information could be identified early, or even found at all, and whether the practice could immediately see which clients were ready, which were nearly ready and which required intervention.
The major accounting platforms have introduced useful tools to help practices manage the process. But there is a big difference between a system saying, “Your quarterly records are incomplete,” and telling a client, “We’ve received your April and May bank statements, but June is still missing.”
Ideally, somebody from the practice would call that client, explain exactly what is missing and tell them precisely what they need to do next. Because many of these clients are small businesses. They are already trying to serve customers, manage staff, pay suppliers, deal with paperwork and keep the business moving. MTD is another obligation landing on an already crowded desk, so a vague reminder does not necessarily help. But dedicated hours to going through paperwork and then contacting clients individually is untenable; Giving every client a personal call, a detailed explanation and repeated follow-up could create an enormous backlog of work 4 times a year for the practice, leaving staff underutilized the rest of the time.
But this is precisely where AI presents an unprecedented opportunity to change the process altogether – make things easy for the client, remove work from the desk of staff while giving HMRC the data they require.
What if your process-management software knew what each client has actually submitted? It could identify what is complete, what is questionable, what is still missing and who should be contacted within the client’s business to obtain it. It would even understand what had been submitted in previous quarters easily determining if it was logical that information was being unintentionally omitted.
The practice defines the rules. The tone, the timing, the escalation process and the point at which a member of staff should become involved. The system then acts as a PA, making basic judgements, handling the routine process automatically and with precision, asking for help only when things are ambiguous or fall outside of the software’s purview. Once it identifies precisely what is outstanding, it takes ownership of cross-channel communication, letting each client know exactly what needs to come next, keeping on top of it as deadlines approach.
At the same time, it gives practice management a real-time view of the entire client base under a single ‘pane of glass’. Which clients are ready? Which are waiting for information? Which are becoming problematic? Which requires professional intervention? Management can see the overall picture and drill down into the complete process record for an individual client whenever necessary. And when human intervention really is needed, somebody takes ownership but only when that kind of attention is absolutely needed.
In other words, the client receives the clarity of a personal conversation without every interaction becoming another task in a staff member’s diary. Management also gains a much better understanding of how the whole client base is progressing in real time.
This is not just about efficiency. It is about delivering a superb client experience while everyone gets their heads around the new MTD requirements. It is about making high-quality, advisory-level communication scalable without forcing practices to increase headcount in line with the compliance workload.
Since I am an inveterate optimist, I do not see MTD solely as another regulatory burden.
I see an opportunity.
An opportunity for practices to test the waters to find a better way of working. One in which clients know exactly what is expected of them, the practice has real-time visibility across its client base, problems are identified earlier, and routine checking, chasing and reminding can happen automatically. Qualified staff can then spend more time building relationships, identifying new opportunities and applying their professional judgement, and less time pushing papers around.
Done properly, this could allow practices to serve more clients efficiently, improve client satisfaction and move ahead of competitors who simply bolt four new deadlines onto their existing workload.
There is another part of this equation that matters: cost.
Bespoke software has traditionally meant a substantial upfront capital investment, which puts it beyond the comfortable reach of many smaller and mid-sized practices. But the commercial model can change alongside the benefits of AI assisted software development.
Instead of paying a large amount upfront, development can potentially be financed over a fixed period through a predictable recurring payment. At the end of that period, the development has been paid for and the practice owns the software. Hosting, maintenance and agreed support can be packaged alongside it.
That changes the buying decision. You are no longer asking a smaller practice to make a large one-off bet on technology. You are giving it the opportunity to introduce a capability gradually, while the operational savings and increased capacity begin to appear.
And MTD provides an unusually good place to start. It is a tightly defined process, a real operational problem, a measurable workload and an opportunity to see what happens when software is designed around the way the practice actually works, rather than forcing the practice to work around the software.
If that approach proves itself, there is no reason the same thinking cannot be applied to onboarding, document intake, client communication, bookkeeping support, internal knowledge and other processes across the practice.
We have explored this wider opportunity in our new guide:
MTD: Burden or Business Advantage?
It looks at how secure and GDPR compliant AI, automation and bespoke software can work alongside the accounting systems a practice already uses, helping to reduce operational pressure, strengthen client relationships and create capacity for growth.
The practice sets the rules. AI operates within them.
The first deadline has passed. The useful question now is not simply, “Did we get through it?” It is: “What did it reveal, and what can we improve about the way we work before the next one?”
If you are an accountant dealing with MTD, particularly as the number of clients brought into quarterly reporting grows again in 2027 and 2028, I am genuinely interested in hearing what this first deadline looked like inside practices: what worked, what did not, and where the real pressure appeared.
If you would like a copy of MTD: Burden or Business Advantage?, send me a message and I will email you the PDF.
And if the first deadline exposed a process in your practice that is consuming too much staff time, I would be very happy to spend some time looking at it with you and discussing what could realistically be improved or automated. You can book some time here.
