Never Miss the 31 January Crystallisation Deadline

Release v1.0.268 · Escalation Workflow

Quarterly submissions are only half of your Making Tax Digital obligation. Once all four updates for a tax year have been submitted, HMRC requires landlords to crystallise — locking in their final tax position by 31 January. Miss that date, and you may face penalties.

Starting with v1.0.268, the platform takes care of keeping you on track automatically.

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The Problem It Solves

It is easy to submit your quarterly updates and assume the job is done. But crystallisation is a separate, mandatory step — and with a deadline that falls in the middle of January, it can slip through the cracks.

Before this release, there was no automated safety net to catch organisations that had completed their quarterly submissions but not yet finalised their return.

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What's New in v1.0.268

A new scheduled workflow runs every morning at 08:00 from 1 December through to 31 January. It looks at every organisation that:

• Has at least one quarterly summary marked as submitted for the closing tax year.
• Has no recorded hmrc.finalise.completed event in its audit log.

If an organisation meets both criteria, the platform begins sending escalating reminders to all organisation members — starting at 60 days out and increasing in urgency as 31 January approaches. On the deadline day itself, the notification escalates to an error-level alert to prompt immediate action.

Escalation Timeline

1 Dec      ──────────────────────────────────────────▶  31 Jan
│                                                           │
├─ 60 days before:  First reminder sent                    │
├─ 30 days before:  Reminder resent                        │
├─ 14 days before:  Urgency increases                      │
├─  7 days before:  Urgent reminder                        │
├─  1 day before:   Final urgent reminder                  │
└─  Deadline day:   🔴 Error notification                  │

Reminders stop automatically once crystallisation is completed and confirmed via the HMRC MTD API.

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How to Act on a Reminder

If you receive a crystallisation reminder:

1. Log in to the platform and navigate to your Tax Year Summary.
2. Verify all four quarterly submissions are showing as Submitted.
3. Proceed to the Crystallisation section and review your figures.
4. Submit your crystallisation declaration — this is sent directly to HMRC via the Making Tax Digital API.

Once submitted, the platform logs the completion event and removes your organisation from the escalation sweep.

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Technical Details

Property	Value
Version	1.0.268
Workflow type	Escalation
Schedule	0 8 * * * (daily, 08:00 UTC)
Active window	1 December – 31 January
Entities	quarterly_summaries, hmrc_businesses, audit_log, org_members, notifications

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This workflow is part of our ongoing commitment to making HMRC compliance as automated and stress-free as possible for UK landlords on the Making Tax Digital programme.