Paddenburg & Co embrace MTD with IRIS Accountancy Suite
Paddenburg & Co has been serving the Brighton community for over 40 years with accountancy, tax advice and bookkeeping services. With the help of Hendrick, their Rhodesian Ridgeback office dog, maintaining morale, Paddenburg & Co recently made history being the first IRIS Accountancy Suite users to be set up to file via Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax and Self-Assessment (ITSA). In the words of Nick Paddenburg, Director of Paddenburg & Co, “This milestone marks a new era of digital tax filing, paving the way for a smarter, faster, and more efficient future for accountants and taxpayers alike!”
Highlights
- The first accountants in the country to set up to file MTD for ITSA using IRIS Accountancy Suite
- Paddenburg & Co are ahead of the MTD deadline, working without any looming anxiety!
- Working with IRIS for 25 years
Overcoming MTD fears
With seven employees and one furry friend, Nick tells us that he was initially nervous about the idea of MTD. “I had been having sleepless nights, and it was something that I was thinking about every day coming into the office. "I was definitely worried about the amount of extra work it would be and if I would need to get additional staff in.” With efficient preparation and staying one step ahead, things have become a lot less daunting. We’ve had an evolving client segmentation going so we knew exactly what clients’ incomes were,”
Rather than succumbing to fear and avoiding the challenge, Paddenburg & Co tackled MTD head-on! Nick tells us the process was simpler than he anticipated: “From our side, the whole process has been very straightforward, far easier than I expected it to be... HMRC signing a client up to MTD takes no more than five minutes. Once they're then signed up, you go into IRIS, and you only have to do it the first time.”
“In order to implement MTD and to get the actual filing process working is not an overly complex process. It's more making that jump and actually saying, you know what? I'm just going to go for it. And that's the mentality that I had.”
IRIS as your partner in MTD
Paddenburg & Co have been loyal IRIS customers for an impressive 25 years, building a legacy of success alongside a trusted partner. Nick tells us, “We love IRIS because it's all integrated and it allows us to compete with much bigger firms on a much bigger scale.”
It was due to this partnership that Nick and his firm were able to make IRIS Accounting history. Guided by the team at IRIS, Nick is the first IRIS user to use the MTD functionality in IRIS Accountancy Suite. He has also signed up three clients so far and authorised them via the HMRC website. Nick explains, “You have to do a digital handshake between the software and IRIS. And once you do that, any client that you've enrolled with HMRC will then pull through the quarterly submissions into IRIS.”
Overall, Nick is thrilled to be ahead of the game: “I feel like we're in a great place, particularly with using IRIS and now having seen the submissions go in, having registered clients for MTD, I feel a lot more confident. We're super happy with IRIS. It's made the first filings that I've experienced easy to submit.”
Embrace the change and ‘get ahead of the curve’
Delighted by the historic achievement, Nick shared the news on LinkedIn where it quickly garnered over 11,000 views in just over a week! He shares his advice to other accountants on the fence about MTD, “I’d tell them not to be daunted by it… You could put things off - we all have put it off, but it's coming in twelve months. So rather than waiting until it’s compulsory, see how it works ahead of the game whilst there's no penalties being applied.”
All IRIS software is MTD compliant and offers the MTD ITSA Pilot, which is fool-proof in preparing you for April 2026. In Nick’s own words, “You might as well trial it. It's almost like it's in a safe mode. You can't go wrong - you can even make amend submissions. Trial it and get ahead of the curve, would be my advice.”
