Accounted vs GoSimpleTax: Self Assessment Compared

Accounted and GoSimpleTax both help UK sole traders with Self Assessment, but they solve fundamentally different problems. GoSimpleTax is a tax filing tool — it helps you fill in your SA100 and submit it to HMRC. Accounted is a year-round bookkeeping and tax platform — it does your bookkeeping every day and files your return as a natural result.

This distinction matters more than most comparison articles acknowledge. Choosing between them is not about which has better features — it is about which approach suits how you work.

What GoSimpleTax Does Well

GoSimpleTax is focused and effective. You log in, enter your income and expense figures, and the software guides you through your Self Assessment return step by step. The prompts are clear, the interface is logical, and the explanations at each stage actually help — which is more than can be said for the HMRC website.

GoSimpleTax covers all 13 Self Assessment schedules. Whether you have self-employment income, rental properties, capital gains, foreign income, or employment alongside self-employment, GoSimpleTax handles it. This breadth of coverage is a genuine strength — many competitors cover only the most common schedules.

The pricing is affordable too. At around £58.80 per year, it costs less than a month of most cloud accounting platforms. For what it does — annual tax filing — it represents solid value.

GoSimpleTax also includes useful extras: a tax calculator for estimating your liability, deadline reminders, and the ability to store receipts. These features support the filing process without trying to be a full bookkeeping platform.

What Accounted Does Differently

Accounted takes a different approach entirely. Rather than helping you file once a year, it handles your bookkeeping throughout the year so that filing is the easy part at the end. You can see the full breakdown on our features page.

HMRC's own guidance on keeping records when self-employed emphasises the importance of maintaining ongoing records rather than reconstructing them at year end — which is exactly the approach Accounted takes.

Penny, the AI bookkeeper, connects to your bank, pulls in transactions daily, and categorises them automatically. Each categorisation uses a three-tier reasoning system — rules, pattern matching, and AI — with confidence scores that determine whether a transaction is processed automatically or flagged for your review.

Receipt management works through WhatsApp. Photograph a receipt, send it to Penny, and the AI extracts the supplier, amount, date, VAT, and category. It then matches the receipt to the corresponding bank transaction. No app to download, no interface to learn.

By the time Self Assessment rolls around, your figures are already done. You are not sitting down in January trying to reconstruct a year of income and expenses from bank statements and memory. Penny has been doing it all year, and your return is pre-populated from live bookkeeping data.

Accounted currently supports 11 of 13 Self Assessment schedules. GoSimpleTax's coverage of all 13 is an advantage if you have particularly unusual income types, but for the vast majority of sole traders, Accounted's coverage is sufficient.

The Core Difference

Here is the fundamental question: Do you want to do your bookkeeping yourself and then use software to file, or do you want software that does the bookkeeping for you and files as a natural by-product?

With GoSimpleTax, you need to arrive with your numbers. You need to know your total income, your expenses broken down by category, and any other information the return requires. Where those numbers come from is up to you — spreadsheets, bank statements, a shoebox of receipts, or another bookkeeping tool.

With Accounted, the numbers build themselves throughout the year. Every transaction is captured, categorised, and reconciled as it happens. When filing time comes, the return is essentially pre-populated.

If you already have a bookkeeping system that works (even a well-maintained spreadsheet), GoSimpleTax is the efficient way to file. If you do not have a system, or your current system is "look at my bank statements in January," Accounted solves a bigger problem.

Feature Comparison

Bank Feeds

• GoSimpleTax: No automatic bank feeds. You enter figures manually.
• Accounted: Automatic daily transaction imports from all major UK banks via Open Banking.

This is the most significant difference. Automatic bank feeds mean your records are always up to date. Manual entry means they are only as current as your last data entry session.

Receipt Management

• GoSimpleTax: You can upload receipts and attach them to income or expense entries. The storage is useful for record-keeping.
• Accounted: WhatsApp-based receipt capture with AI extraction. Send a photo, Penny extracts the data, categorises the expense, and matches it to your bank transaction.

Tax Calculations

• GoSimpleTax: Calculates your tax liability as you enter your figures. Covers all 13 SA schedules, including less common ones like foreign income and trust income.
• Accounted: Real-time tax estimates that update automatically as transactions are categorised. Covers 11 of 13 SA schedules. Income Tax, Class 2 and Class 4 National Insurance, and payments on account are all calculated.

MTD Compliance

• GoSimpleTax: Offers MTD quarterly submissions, but since it does not maintain ongoing bookkeeping records, preparing each quarterly update requires gathering and entering your figures.
• Accounted: MTD quarterly submissions are generated automatically from your live bookkeeping data. Because your books are always up to date, submitting a quarterly update is a matter of reviewing and confirming. Our Making Tax Digital guide explains why this matters.

Pricing

• GoSimpleTax: From £58.80/year (one-off annual payment)
• Accounted: From £12/month (all features included)

GoSimpleTax is significantly cheaper on a pure cost basis. But the comparison is not apples-to-apples — GoSimpleTax is a filing tool, while Accounted is a year-round bookkeeping platform that includes filing. If you would otherwise need separate bookkeeping software plus GoSimpleTax for filing, the combined cost may exceed Accounted's monthly fee.

Who Should Choose GoSimpleTax

GoSimpleTax is the right choice if:

• You already have a bookkeeping system that works. If you maintain your own spreadsheet or use another tool for day-to-day bookkeeping, GoSimpleTax is an efficient and affordable way to file your return.
• You file once and forget. If you engage with your finances once a year at filing time and are comfortable gathering your figures manually, GoSimpleTax streamlines the filing process.
• Budget is the primary concern. At under £60 per year, GoSimpleTax is one of the cheapest Self Assessment filing options available.
• You have unusual income types. If you need coverage of all 13 SA schedules, including trust income or Lloyd's underwriters, GoSimpleTax's broader coverage matters.

Who Should Choose Accounted

Accounted is the right choice if:

• You do not have a bookkeeping system. If your current approach is "deal with it in January," Accounted replaces the missing system and ensures your records are always up to date.
• You want automation. If you would rather your bookkeeping happen automatically than do it yourself, Penny's AI categorisation and WhatsApp receipt capture are the key differentiators.
• MTD requires quarterly submissions. If you earn over £50,000, you need to submit quarterly updates to HMRC. Accounted makes these effortless because your books are already up to date.
• You want year-round tax visibility. Knowing your estimated tax bill throughout the year helps you budget and avoids the January shock.

Start a free trial to see how Accounted handles your bookkeeping and tax in practice, or check our pricing to see what is included.

Can You Use Both?

Yes, actually. Some users maintain Accounted for year-round bookkeeping and use GoSimpleTax specifically for filing if they need the broader schedule coverage. This is a belt-and-braces approach that works, though Accounted's built-in filing makes it unnecessary for most users.

The more common upgrade path is from GoSimpleTax to Accounted. Users who have been filing with GoSimpleTax often switch to Accounted when they realise that the hardest part of Self Assessment is not the filing — it is having accurate figures to file in the first place.

The Bottom Line

GoSimpleTax is excellent at what it does. If you need an affordable, comprehensive Self Assessment filing tool and you are happy to do your own bookkeeping, it is one of the best options available.

Accounted solves a bigger problem. It does your bookkeeping for you, keeps your tax estimates current, and makes filing a five-minute task at the end of a year of automated record-keeping.

For most sole traders we talk to, the bookkeeping is the hard part and the filing is relatively straightforward once the numbers are right. If that sounds like you, Accounted is probably the better investment. If you have the bookkeeping sorted and just need a filing tool, GoSimpleTax is the smarter, cheaper choice.

For more comparisons, see our best bookkeeping software guide or explore how Accounted compares to other platforms like Sage and QuickBooks.

See how Accounted compares to Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and more — and why sole traders are switching. See the full comparison →