MTD quarterly updates: What happens after you submit your first update?

Team Nomi

Aug 25, 2026
7 minutes read

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Submitting your first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax (MTD ITSA) quarterly update is an important part of the digital reporting process. But submitting the figures is not the end of the process.

Once a quarterly update is sent to HMRC, the submission needs to be checked, acknowledged, and monitored. You also need to know what to do if HMRC returns an error or if you later identify a mistake in the information submitted.

This guide explains what happens after a quarterly update is submitted and how practices can monitor the submission through Nomi.

What is an MTD quarterly update?

An MTD quarterly update is a digital summary of income and expenses for each qualifying business.

It is important to understand that a quarterly update is not a tax return. It does not calculate the client’s final Income Tax liability. Instead, it provides HMRC with a summary of the relevant income and expenses for the reporting period.

Nomi allows users to prepare, validate, and submit these updates to HMRC through its MTD ITSA software.

What happens when you submit a quarterly update?

Once the quarterly income and expense data has been reviewed and validated, the submission process involves:

1. Selecting the relevant quarterly obligation.
2. Selecting Submit to HMRC.
3. Nomi securely transmits the quarterly income and expense data to HMRC through its MTD software connection.
4. HMRC validates the submission and returns a response.
5. Once the submission is successful, the Income & Expenses report is updated with the submission timestamp and IRmark, providing proof that the quarterly update has been submitted to HMRC.
6. The submission status and HMRC response can then be reviewed to confirm the update was successfully submitted.

Check the submission status

After submission, Nomi updates the status of the quarterly submission.

The status can indicate what has happened to the update:

The document recommends reviewing the HMRC response before considering the submission complete.

This is particularly important after your first quarterly update because the submission status gives you confirmation of what has happened to the information you sent.

What is an HMRC acknowledgement?

After a successful submission, HMRC returns a confirmation message.

The acknowledgement confirms that:

• • The quarterly update has been received.
  • The submission has passed HMRC validation.
  • The obligation has been updated.

Where available, the HMRC submission reference should be retained for your records and the client’s audit trail.

Keeping this information can help your practice maintain a clear record of the submission.

What if the submission is rejected?

A rejected submission means that the update has failed validation and requires correction.

The first step is to review the reason for the rejection and identify the underlying issue. The relevant digital records or import template should then be corrected before following the appropriate correction process.

The source document notes that the precise correction workflow is subject to further HMRC clarification and ongoing software development. Therefore, users should follow the latest HMRC guidance and Nomi release notes when dealing with corrections.

What if you find an error after submission?

Errors can sometimes be identified after a quarterly update has already been submitted.

If this happens, the process outlined in the document is to:

1. Review the nature of the error.
2. Correct the underlying digital records or import template.
3. Follow HMRC guidance on whether the correction should be included in the next cumulative quarterly update or dealt with through the year-end adjustment process.

The key point is that an error should not simply be ignored because the original quarterly update has already been submitted.

Keep monitoring your MTD obligations

After completing the first quarterly update, practices still need to monitor future MTD ITSA obligations.

Nomi’s compliance reports can help practices:

• • Identify clients within the scope of MTD ITSA.
  • Track outstanding quarterly obligations.
  • Monitor submission deadlines.
  • Review completed submissions.
  • Identify overdue returns.

These reports can also be exported in formats such as Excel or PDF for internal review or client communication.

Regularly reviewing compliance information helps practices keep track of which quarterly updates have been completed and which obligations remain outstanding.

Don’t forget the next quarterly update

Completing one quarterly update does not mean the reporting process is finished for the client.

The recommended approach is to retrieve the latest HMRC obligations before preparing each quarterly update. This ensures that the practice is working with the latest information returned by HMRC.

Before preparing the next update, the document recommends:

• • Refreshing HMRC obligations.
  • Selecting the correct business source.
  • Selecting the correct reporting period.
  • Using the official import template.
  • Reviewing income and expense categories.
  • Validating the data.
  • Reviewing the quarterly summary.
  • Checking the HMRC acknowledgement after submission.

What should you keep after submitting?

For good record keeping, the document recommends saving or exporting HMRC acknowledgements and submission references where available.

It is also important to maintain accurate digital records because the figures submitted in the quarterly update should reflect the digital records maintained during the reporting period.

How Nomi helps with quarterly submissions

Nomi is MTD-compatible software that supports the quarterly submission workflow, allowing practices to retrieve HMRC obligations, prepare quarterly data, validate the information, and submit updates through HMRC’s APIs. 

After submission, Nomi provides submission statuses and compliance reporting, helping practitioners confirm what happened to the update and monitor the client’s ongoing MTD obligations. 

The next stage of the MTD ITSA process is the year-end final declaration, year-end adjustments, and completing the client’s annual tax position under MTD ITSA.

Disclaimer: MTD ITSA rules, HMRC processes and Nomi functionality may change over time. Please check the latest HMRC guidance and Nomi updates for current requirements and processes. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What happens after I submit an MTD Quarterly Update?
   After submission, the update is processed by HMRC, and the submission status can be monitored in Nomi. The status may show as submitted, accepted, pending, rejected, or error. An HMRC acknowledgement is returned after a successful submission, confirming that the update has been received and passed HMRC validation.

2. Can I change a quarterly update after submitting it?
   A previously submitted quarterly update cannot be directly amended. If an error is identified after submission, the revised figures are generally included in the next cumulative quarterly update.

3. What if I make a mistake in my first quarterly update?
   If the mistake is identified before submission, the data should be corrected and validated again before sending it to HMRC. If it is identified after submission, the corrected figures are generally reflected in the next cumulative update. For significant errors or exceptional circumstances, the latest HMRC guidance should be followed.

4. How many quarterly updates does each business need to submit?
   Each qualifying business must submit four quarterly updates during the tax year. If a taxpayer has more than one qualifying business, each business has its own reporting obligations and requires separate submissions.

5. Can I check my MTD Quarterly Update submission history?
   Yes. Submission history is available within the client’s MTD for Income Tax area in Nomi. Depending on the available functionality, users can view submission dates, reporting periods, submission status, HMRC acknowledgements, and historical quarterly updates.