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FeaturesMaking Tax DigitalUpdated February 25, 2026

Blog: We Rebuilt Onboarding Around What UK Landlords Actually Need

We Rebuilt Onboarding Around What UK Landlords Actually Need

v1.0.53 · UI/UX · Usability

When you signed up for the first time, the checklist that greeted you asked you to upload a logo, pick a brand colour, invite a teammate, and set up billing.

None of that helps you file a tax return.

We built this platform for one purpose: making it straightforward for UK landlords to meet their Making Tax Digital obligations. So we replaced the entire onboarding checklist with one that reflects that purpose.

The old checklist was the wrong map

Generic SaaS onboarding checklists exist to drive activation metrics that matter to SaaS businesses — seat expansion, billing attachment, brand customisation. They are not designed for a landlord who has just signed up because HMRC has mandated quarterly digital tax submissions and they need to comply.

A first-time user landing on that checklist had no signal of what to actually do next. The steps they needed — entering a National Insurance Number, connecting their letting agent, importing properties, categorising rental income — were nowhere in sight.

The new checklist is your MTD critical path

As of v1.0.53, the onboarding checklist walks you through six steps that represent the exact sequence required to go from zero to your first compliant quarterly submission:

  1. Add your National Insurance Number — Required by HMRC for every MTD submission.
  2. Connect your Letting Agent via AgentOS — Authorise the AgentOS API connection so your landlord record and transactions can be imported.
  3. Import your first properties — Pull your managed properties into the platform.
  4. Categorise transactions — Assign income and expenses to the correct HMRC categories.
  5. Connect your HMRC account — Complete the Government Gateway OAuth flow to authorise submissions.
  6. Compute your first quarter — Generate and review your first quarterly summary, ready to send to HMRC.

Every step links directly to the right place in the dashboard. No hunting around.

It knows when you're done

The old checklist relied on you manually dismissing steps. The new one reads your actual account state.

Entered your NINO? Step one turns green automatically. Completed the HMRC OAuth flow? Step five is done. Computed a quarter? The whole checklist is complete.

This is powered by real data flags — hasNino, agentLinked, hmrcConnected, firstQuarterComputed — rather than checkbox state stored in a session.

Why this matters

MTD for Income Tax is not optional. If you're a UK landlord with qualifying income, you will need to submit quarterly updates to HMRC. The cost of not understanding the setup process is a missed deadline, a penalty, or a submission that fails because a National Insurance Number was never entered.

Good onboarding is not about customising a logo. It is about making sure the first thing a user does is the right thing. This release is a step toward that.

For full setup instructions, see the MTD Onboarding Guide.