Product updates

Anti-money laundering in the Practice edition: client risk assessments, due diligence and evidence, identity and sanctions checks with ComplyCube or Veriphy on the firm's own account, the MLRO's log and inspection packs; budgets imported from a spreadsheet; Mark paid with the amount, date and bank first; Print preview; payment runs with each payment's references; and refused changes on the audit trail.

ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING (PRACTICE EDITION)

Murgese keeps the firm's record under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017, beside the books it already keeps for each client. The firm stays responsible for its compliance; this is where it keeps the evidence.

- Off until the firm switches it on. The firm names its MLRO and the people who may see AML records; nobody else sees them, an administrator included. - A risk assessment for each client: individual, sole trader, partnership or LLP, company, trust or charity, across the client, the service, geography and how the work is delivered. The result is low, medium or high, and sets simplified, standard or enhanced due diligence. - The rules that force enhanced due diligence are applied whatever is answered: a politically exposed person, their family or close associates (a domestic PEP starts lower), a FATF call for action country, false documents and unusually complex or large transactions. The result can be changed with a reason, never below what a rule requires. Senior management approval is given on the file. - Directors and people with significant control read from Companies House, with their holdings, and a daily look at the register that opens a review when the officers or owners change. - Evidence for each person: an original seen, a certified copy, another provider's report, and for enhanced cases the source of funds and of wealth. Documents are kept encrypted. - Electronic identity checks, PEP and sanctions screening with or without monitoring, and ID document and selfie checks with ComplyCube or Veriphy, on the firm's own account with the provider. The firm's computer calls the provider directly; no check data passes through Murgese Ltd. Neither connection has yet been run against the provider's own service, and the status page says where each stands. - A check whose answer is lost is looked for before anything is sent again, so nothing is paid for twice, and a result that cannot be read is shown as an error, never as a pass. - Review dates by risk on the deadlines and the job board. - Anyone in the firm can raise a concern with the MLRO. Only the MLRO reads the MLRO's log, which records the decision, a suspicious activity report's reference and the dates of a defence against money laundering request. - The firm-wide risk assessment, written policies, a training log, a usage log of checks, and an AML audit trail that cannot be changed. - Records kept for five years after the relationship ends, even if the company is deleted, with deletion offered after that. - An inspection pack for a client or the whole firm: a summary that opens in any browser, the records as spreadsheets and the documents, with a password.

BUDGETS FROM A SPREADSHEET

- Export a budget to Excel, fill it in and import it back. An empty budget exported for the year is a template in the company's own account codes. - A sheet from other software with the accounts down the side and the months across the top reads too, as Excel or CSV. - What the file holds is shown, account by account, before anything is written, and a problem in the file is named by its row. Replace the figures in the budget on screen, or make a new budget from the file.

MARK PAID, WITH THE DETAILS FIRST

On the invoices and bills lists, Mark paid opens a window before anything is recorded.

- The amount is the balance still owed, and can be brought down for a part payment. The window says what will stay outstanding. - The date is today, and can be moved to the day the money actually moved. - The bank account is a choice: the money goes into, or comes out of, the account you pick. - Nothing is recorded until you press Record, and Cancel leaves the document as it was.

PRINT PREVIEW

Invoices, bills, quotes, reports and CIS statements have a Print preview button beside Print. It opens the pages exactly as they will print, page breaks and all, in a window of their own with its own Print button.

PAYMENT RUNS

- The panel you key into your banking from shows the payment date and the account the money leaves from above the list of payments. - Each payment shows the bill references it covers, which is the reference the supplier matches it by. - A bill from a supplier who holds credit not yet set against their bills says so on its row, with the amount.

CREDIT YOU CAN SEE

- On the invoices and bills lists, a credit note is marked as one beside its number. - The foot of each list shows the documents outstanding and the credit not yet applied on lines of their own, above the total.

THE AUDIT TRAIL

- When somebody's role does not allow a change they try to make, the trail records it as Refused, with who it was, what they were told and what they tried. - Refused is one of the actions the trail can be filtered by.

A company sold during the year stays on the trial balance and acquisitions screens, with its disposal date offered in one press, and the date control was lost can be corrected or cleared from its row. An opening difference is recorded as what it is: a prior period adjustment, or a difference nobody can explain, carried on its own until it is accepted. The exchange rates screen asks for every month a company on its own year end is translated at.

A COMPANY SOLD DURING THE YEAR, FINISHED ON THE SCREENS THAT FINISH IT

- A subsidiary sold during the year stays on the trial balance and acquisitions screens, in a group of its own labelled with the date it left. Its last trial balance and its acquisition are both needed to work out the profit on disposal, and both can be recorded after the sale. - Choosing a company that has left, on the trial balance screen, offers its disposal date and the disposal purpose in one press. - "At the disposal date" is one of the purposes a trial balance can be imported for. - The date control was lost can be corrected, or cleared to put the company back in the group, from the row it is shown on. Clearing it deletes nothing: the company's trial balances and mapping stay as they were. While a sale is recorded against that date, the row says to remove the sale first, because the two have to agree.

LAST YEAR'S FIGURES, WHEN THEY WILL NOT RECONCILE

- An opening difference is recorded as one of two different statements. A prior period adjustment says last year's filed figures were wrong by that much, and the comparatives are restated under Section 10; the note on the error is the firm's to write on the accounts screen. - A difference nobody can explain lets the work go on and is carried as a figure of its own. The reconciliation shows amber rather than green, the exceptions panel keeps a warning until somebody accepts it with a reason, and the opening screen says by how much the accounts disagree with what was filed. - Before either, the screen lists the four things that cause almost all of these, in the order worth checking: whether the filed figure is the reserves of the owners of the parent or a total including the minority; goodwill amortisation for every year since acquisition; the associate's whole accumulated share; and unrealised profit on stock eliminated in an earlier year and still held. Help, Last year's figures, carries the same.

EXCHANGE RATES FOR A COMPANY ON ITS OWN YEAR END

- A company on its own year end in another currency has figures that start up to three months before the group's period. The exchange rates screen asks for those months as well as the period's own, and the panel names the company and says why its months are different.

Optional AI on the firm's own account (Claude, OpenAI or Azure OpenAI): to read invoices, receipts and bank statements instead of Murgese's own reader, with a sample invoice to try it on and a monthly table of what it cost; Analyse with AI on reports, management accounts, the dashboard and VAT returns; and Draft with AI for commentary, policies, notes and the directors' or trustees' report, reviewed before approval. Every figure it returns is checked here.

MURGESE'S OWN READER STAYS THE DEFAULT

Read PDFs and the bank statement importer read with Murgese's own reader, on the computer, and send nothing anywhere. Everything below is optional and off until a firm turns it on.

AI ON THE FIRM'S OWN ACCOUNT

Under Practice settings, Reading and analysing with AI, a firm connects the AI account it already has. Three providers are offered, each on its own tab:

- Claude (Anthropic). Make an API key at console.anthropic.com and add credit there. Models: Claude Sonnet 5.5 (the default), Claude Opus 5.5 (the most careful) and Claude Haiku 4.5 (the cheapest). - OpenAI (GPT). Make an API key at platform.openai.com and add credit there. Models: GPT-6.1 Sol (the default), GPT-6 Astra (the most capable) and GPT-6 Luna (the cheapest). - Azure OpenAI (Microsoft), for firms whose IT keeps AI inside their own Azure subscription. Enter the resource's endpoint, the deployment name and a key from Keys and Endpoint in the Azure portal.

The provider bills the firm's account for what is read or drafted; nothing goes through Murgese. Each key is tried as it is saved, stored sealed, and only its last four characters are ever shown again. Removing a key turns off whatever used it at once. Every change is on the audit trail, never with the key.

- Step-by-step setup on each provider's tab. - Try it on a sample invoice. Murgese reads an invented invoice that comes with the program, not a client's, and shows each field as printed beside what the provider read, with how long it took and what it cost. It proves the key, the model and the connection before any client's document is sent. - Any model your account offers. Choose from the models offered first, or type any other the provider offers your account; Murgese can ask the provider for its list. A model the provider withdraws is said as such. - Confirmation before anything is first sent. Switching a provider on asks someone who can change settings to confirm, once for each provider, that the firm has the provider's data processing terms, has told its clients and has considered its professional body's guidance. Suggested wording for an engagement letter and a privacy notice comes with it, with the provider's name filled in. The confirmation is recorded with a name and a date. - What it costs and how well it reads. A table under Practice settings shows, month by month, every use of the AI features: how many questions, how many failed, the average time, the tokens and the cost at the provider's list price, and for invoices how often a person corrected a figure, date or reference the AI had read. The document card, the statement preview and the analysis and drafting windows say what each one took and cost. - Through your office's proxy. In the desktop app, requests to AI providers use the computer's own network and proxy settings.

AI AS A READER

A firm can choose any of the three to read its invoices, receipts and bank statements. It reads any layout, including scans and photographs.

- Clear about where documents go. While an AI reader is in use, the settings panel, the Read PDFs drop area and the statement importer all say which company each document is sent to. Only the document itself is sent: never the client list, the chart of accounts or anything else in the books. - Checked here, whoever reads it. An invoice still has to add up, have a reference and a positive total, and no reader chooses a nominal account. A bank statement still has to reconcile to its own summary box, opening and closing balances and running balance. An AI reading faces more: every figure it returns has to be printed on the document, so one misread figure cannot be covered by a second, and every date on a statement has to fall inside the period it covers.

ANALYSE WITH AI

Turned on separately, under Analysis and drafting, with any of the three accounts. It is off until somebody turns it on, and nothing is sent until somebody presses the button.

- Where: the profit and loss, balance sheet and trial balance in Reports, Management accounts, the company dashboard and the VAT return. - What it sends: the figures on that screen as text, named and in pounds, with the company's name and the period. Nothing else from the books, and no internal references. The button says, before it is pressed, which company the figures go to. - What comes back: a headline, between three and eight points marked Note, Check or Concern, and the questions to put to the client. On a VAT return, the boxes that moved unusually against the returns before it. - Checked before you see it. Every amount in the answer is looked for in the figures that were sent, or as the difference or sum of two figures on one line, allowing only for the rounding it is written with; every percentage has to be one figure as a share of another or the change between them. Anything else is marked in red against the sentence that holds it. A reference to a paragraph of a standard or a section of an Act is flagged for checking, and a point that quotes no figure at all is marked General and listed last. - Copy puts the analysis on the clipboard for a note or an email. Each analysis is on the audit trail, saying what was sent and to whom.

DRAFT WITH AI

- Management accounts commentary: Overview, Trading, Cash and working capital, and What to do next, written from the pack and the prompts on each box. - Accounting policies and notes: the policies and notes the figures call for and that are missing, such as stocks, related parties where a director's loan appears, or going concern wording where there are net liabilities, and a replacement only where the present wording does not fit. Wording that already fits is left alone. - The directors' report and the trustees' report: the sections that are a judgement about the year. Names, the small companies statement, responsibilities and approval are never sent to be redrafted. - Offered, never applied. Each proposal sits beside the wording it would replace, with its own tick. Anything holding an amount that is not in the figures starts unticked. Where a fact is needed that the figures do not give, the draft leaves it in square brackets for the preparer, and those are listed. Nothing changes until Use the ticked wording is pressed, and what was accepted, and which model drafted it, goes on the audit trail. - Reviewed before approval. Wording accepted into a set of year-end accounts is listed at the top of the screen, with who drafted and who accepted it, until someone marks each piece reviewed. The accounts cannot be recorded as approved while any is left.

THE MANUALS

Both manuals are at 2.9.37. Settings (chapter 10) describes the three providers, setting one up and trying it, the confirmation, the usage table, the reader and analysis and drafting; Reports (70), Management accounts (62), the dashboard (30), the VAT return (50) and Year-end accounts (63) describe the buttons on each; Bills (36) and Bank (40) describe how a document read by AI is checked.

A sharper look: the Lime colour scheme, a sidebar that shows which menu you are in, settings laid out across the whole screen, the invoice preview beside the designer, a typeface of Murgese's own, and Read PDFs that reads an invoice by its layout.

LIME

A new colour scheme under Practice settings, Colour (in Business edition, at the foot of the Settings screen). The sidebar is charcoal, the buttons are lime with dark lettering on them, and a lime bar marks the screen you are on. The section headings in the sidebar are set in a typewriter face, with a small count beside a folded heading. Links and focus rings on the page are a deep olive of the same colour, so they read clearly on white.

Lime takes the place of Graphite. A firm that had chosen Graphite has Lime, and can choose any of the other five on the same screen. As with every theme, red for overdue, amber for a warning and green for filed are never changed.

A SHARPER LOOK IN EVERY THEME

- Murgese carries its own typeface, Inter, so the same screen looks the same on every computer in the office, whatever is installed on it. - The sidebar marks the screen you are on with a bar in the theme's colour, and shows which menu you are in: the heading over the current screen is lit, and its screens hang off a line in the same colour. Every other open heading has the line faintly, so it is always clear which screens belong to which heading. A folded heading shows how many screens it holds in a small pill. - Tick boxes, radio buttons, the ageing bars and the work in progress bars take the colour of the theme.

SETTINGS ACROSS THE WHOLE SCREEN

On a wide screen, the settings screens lay their panels out in two columns, from a 1366 laptop upwards:

- company Settings: the company itself on the left (what kind of business, the Companies House record, the year end, depreciation, contact details and references), and what it charges and how its paperwork is numbered on the right (VAT, VAT rates, CIS, direct debit and the numbering of every document); - Practice settings: the firm on the left, and the services it connects to, with their keys, on the right; - References and identity: the references beside the identity checks; - the email account and the records mailbox: the settings beside what the mailbox has done.

A narrower window keeps one column.

THE INVOICE PREVIEW BESIDE THE DESIGNER

Under Settings, Sales documents, the preview of an invoice with the company's settings on it sits beside the designer and stays in view while you scroll, so the layout, the colours, the column headings and the logo position show next to the setting that changes them.

THE COMPANY DASHBOARD

The income and expenses chart sits beside Owed to you and You owe, so the year's trading and who owes what are on screen together.

READING INVOICES FROM PDFs

Read PDFs, on Bills and on Invoices, reads an invoice by where things sit on the page as well as by its words, so a marketplace invoice, a Xero or QuickBooks invoice, a utility bill, a till receipt and a sole trader's own template all come through with the right figures.

- Who it is from: the issuer the page names (a marketplace operator, Sold by, Supplier, a line saying who is raising the invoice, the name above the supplier's VAT number, or the letterhead). The Bill to, Invoice to and Shipping address blocks are who the invoice is addressed to, and your own company is never offered as the other party. - The figures: the total is the one that equals the net plus the VAT, so a VAT summary whose last row is called Total is read as the net and the VAT, not as the bill. On an invoice charged in another currency that also states its amounts in sterling, the sterling figures are used and the card says so. - Dates and numbers printed with the value under the label, as Xero and QuickBooks print them, as well as beside it. - The description from the item table, every line of a wrapped description included, with nil lines such as a free shipping row left out. - Suppliers abroad: an invoice from outside the UK that says the reverse charge applies is entered as a reverse charge on services from abroad, a customer VAT number printed on it is not offered as the supplier's, and figures written with a decimal comma (1.200,00) are read that way.

Every reading is a suggestion on its card, checked before anything is created. The Bills chapter of the manual describes what the reader looks at.

THE MANUALS

Both manuals are at 2.9.36. The Settings chapter describes the six colour schemes, Lime among them, and Finding your way around describes the sidebar.

Invoices your own way: the logo left, centre or right, your own column headings, a second colour, header fields, a delivery address, a layout per customer and a discount on every line.

INVOICES YOUR OWN WAY

Under Settings, Sales documents, alongside the four layouts, the typefaces and the accent colour: - The logo goes on the left above the company name, on the right above the document title, or in the centre across the top of the page. - The quantity and the unit price can each be shown or hidden. On a VAT invoice or credit note they print wherever a line is for more than one of something or carries a discount, because a full VAT invoice must show them there; a line for one item or one job needs neither, because its amount is the unit price. Quotes follow the setting as it stands. - Each column can take its own heading: Hours and Rate for time, Nights and Rate for rooms. The amount column is always before VAT. - A second colour for the column headings and the small labels, darkened where needed so it can always be read. - Header fields every new invoice and credit note starts with, such as PO number and Project. A field left empty is not printed.

The preview on the same screen shows each change as it is made.

A DISCOUNT ON EVERY LINE

Invoices, credit notes, quotes and recurring invoices take a discount on each line, as a percentage. The discounted figure is the price: VAT is charged on it and it is what reaches the accounts. The printed document shows the price, the discount in its own column and the amount after it, and the column appears only where a line carries a discount. A quote's discount carries onto the invoice it becomes, and a recurring invoice puts it on every invoice it raises.

DELIVER TO, AND A LAYOUT PER CUSTOMER

An invoice can carry a delivery address, printed beside the invoice address, with the customer's own delivery address one click away. A customer can be given a layout of its own on its contact record, such as the plain layout for a council or the letterhead layout for a customer still sent paper; everything else on the invoice stays the company's.

STAFF

The Staff screen shows one table of what each role can do: every permission with what it lets a person do, and a tick under each role that holds it.

CLIENT LICENCES

The Client licences screen opens with the month's statement, then the client companies that need something, with the rest one click away. On a firm key, keys issued for single companies sit in a section of their own.

THE MANUALS

Both manuals are at 2.9.35. Company settings describes the new invoice options, Invoices and Quotes the discount and the delivery address, Contacts the layout per customer, Recurring invoices the discount on a template, and Staff the table of roles and permissions.

Leases under FRS 102 as amended, on the balance sheet from one schedule per lease: a lease register, month-end journals, a break and a payment to leave, the leases policy and note, and the corporation tax treatment. With deferred tax under FRS 102, the Section 1A tax note and the lease figures tagged in the filing. And Find and recode, the 40% first year allowance, and the 100% allowances on zero-emission cars and charge-points.

Two things to do, and both of them before a set of accounts is prepared.

1. For each company that prepares FRS 102 accounts and holds a lease as lessee, set the framework on the accounts for its first year beginning on or after 1 January 2026, then add its leases on the Leases screen. For a 31 December year end that is the year beginning 1 January 2026.

2. At each year end, for a company preparing FRS 102 accounts, post the corporation tax computation for the year, then work out the deferred tax below it and post that too, before preparing the accounts.

LEASES UNDER FRS 102 AS AMENDED

WHAT CHANGED IN THE STANDARD

From an accounting period beginning on or after 1 January 2026, FRS 102 puts almost every lease a company holds as lessee on its balance sheet: a right-of-use asset, depreciated, and a lease liability, which interest increases and the rent pays off. Short-term leases of 12 months or less, and leases of low-value assets, may be left off. The first day of the first such period is the date of initial application; comparatives are not restated. FRS 105 was not changed, and a micro-entity's leases stay off its balance sheet.

THE LEASE REGISTER

Leases, in the sidebar, is the register. Each lease is added once: what is leased, from whom, the commencement date and the term, including any extension the company is reasonably certain to take, the payments, in advance or in arrears, any rent-free months, and the rent reviews.

Nothing that is a judgement is assumed. Whether an exemption is claimed and why, what the discount rate is and where it came from, whether the rent is reviewed and how, whether any payments depend on use or sales: each starts unanswered, and a lease is not recognised until each is answered. A lease of more than 12 months is not short-term, and vehicles, machinery and property are not low-value assets however small the rent.

The discount rate is the rate implicit in the lease, the company's incremental borrowing rate, or its obtainable borrowing rate: the rate the company would pay to borrow a similar amount over a similar term. It is an annual rate charged at each payment, as a loan's would be.

LEASES ALREADY RUNNING

A lease that was an operating lease comes onto the balance sheet at the date of initial application: the liability at the present value of the payments left, discounted at the incremental or obtainable borrowing rate at that date, and the asset at the same figure adjusted by any rent prepaid or accrued on the books the day before. A rent-free period spread over the lease is an accrual, and moves into the asset.

A finance lease or hire purchase contract already on the books comes over at its carrying amounts, with nothing posted. Its asset stays in the fixed asset register and is depreciated there; the rate is the one at which the payments left discount to the liability.

PAYING THE RENT

Each lease has its own account in the chart, named after it. Code its rent there, with the VAT as usual: the rent pays off the liability rather than being charged as an expense, and the expense is the depreciation and the interest. Where the lessor has only one lease, their bills start on that account. Rent still coded as rent after a lease is recognised is listed by name, and a bank rule doing it can be pointed at the lease's account from the list.

THE MONTH-END JOURNALS

Choose a date, see what it would post, and post: the interest on each liability, the depreciation of each asset, and the move between the amounts due within and after a year, in one journal. A second run to the same date has nothing to post, and the latest run can be taken back.

WHEN SOMETHING CHANGES

A rent review to an index, a reassessment of the term, a change agreed with the lessor and an early end are each recorded with the date they take effect, and post their own journal. A review keeps the rate; a reassessment or change uses a revised one.

THE CHECKS

The register shows three things that have to agree: the liability from the start of the year to the end, cost less depreciation, and the register against the ledger on every lease account. A rent payment missing or coded elsewhere is named against its lease.

IN THE YEAR-END ACCOUNTS

Right-of-use assets appear in tangible fixed assets, in columns of their own in the fixed asset note, and lease liabilities in creditors. A Section 1A set gets a leases policy written from the register where the company has none of its own, and a leases note: a general description of the leasing arrangements, the expense of short-term leases, of low-value leases and of variable payments, the commitments under the leases kept off the balance sheet, and in the first year the transition and its effect on the profit for the year. Write your own description under a note headed Leases and it is used instead.

The note is held back, and the filing with it, until the register agrees with the ledger at the year end.

CORPORATION TAX

The depreciation of a leased asset and the interest on the liability are allowed. The computation leaves them in the profit and adds back only the part of the depreciation that writes off a capital cost, such as stamp duty land tax, carried in the asset. Anything taken to retained earnings when the amended section is first applied is spread under Schedule 14 to Finance Act 2019, on a line of its own; for most companies it is nil.

DEFERRED TAX, AND THE SECTION 1A TAX NOTE

WHAT THE STANDARD ASKS

FRS 102 recognises deferred tax on every timing difference between the accounts and the tax computation: most often capital allowances claimed ahead of the depreciation on the same assets, and losses carried forward. It is measured at the rates expected when the differences reverse and is not discounted. A deferred tax asset is recognised only to the extent it is probable it will be recovered. A small company applying Section 1A applies all of this; Section 1A changes only what is disclosed. A micro-entity under FRS 105 recognises no deferred tax.

From accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2026, Section 1A also asks small companies for a tax note: the components of the tax charge, a reconciliation of the charge to the profit before tax at the applicable rate, and the deferred tax at the year end by type of timing difference.

DEFERRED TAX ON THE CORPORATION TAX SCREEN

Below the computation, the deferred tax at the year end is worked out from the computation posted for that year:

- Fixed assets: the net book value of the classes of asset that qualify for capital allowances, against the written down value of the pools carried forward. Whether a class qualifies is read from its name, and can be changed. Leased right-of-use assets are left out, because a lessee's relief follows the accounts. - Losses carried forward. - Any lease transitional adjustment still to be brought into tax. - Any other timing difference you name, such as pension contributions accrued and not paid. None is an answer.

It asks for the taxable profit the company expects while the differences reverse, and measures the deferred tax at the average rate on that profit after marginal relief: at £150,000 a year, 24%. Where the result is an asset, it asks whether recovering it is probable, how much, and why.

Posting makes one journal dated the year end: the deferred tax charge on the tax line, against the provision for deferred tax, or a deferred tax asset in debtors. Posting again moves only the difference, and the year's deferred tax can be taken back with a reason. The deferred tax charge does not move the corporation tax computation.

Where nothing was carried at the start of the year and something should have been, the screen estimates how much, because a material omission in earlier accounts is corrected by restating the comparatives rather than through this year's profit.

THE TAX NOTE

For a period beginning on or after 1 January 2026, Section 1A accounts carry a Tax on profit note: the corporation tax on the year's profit, any adjustment for earlier years and the deferred tax; the reconciliation from the profit before tax at the main rate, through expenses not deductible, depreciation against capital allowances, losses, the small profits rate and marginal relief, to the charge; and the deferred tax by type. It is in whole pounds and adds up to the tax line on the face of the profit and loss account. Where part of it cannot be written, because the computation or the deferred tax has not been posted, it says so. A note of your own headed Taxation or Tax on profit is used instead.

A BREAK, AND A PAYMENT TO LEAVE

Where a lease has a break the company always expected to use, the term runs to the break and what is paid to leave is the lease's final payment. Where the company decides to use a break it did not expect to, record the lease term as reassessed from the day it gives notice: the term to the break, the payments left, the revised rate and what is paid to leave. The payment is one of the lease payments, so it goes into the re-measured liability and the asset, and the asset is written off by the break. Where there is no break and the lessor agrees to end the lease, record it as ended early, with what is paid.

Either way, the screen asks how much of what is paid is capital for corporation tax. A lump sum paid to be released from a lease is generally capital, and nil is an answer. The capital part of a payment to leave is added back as the asset is depreciated to the break. The capital part of what is paid to end a lease early, and any capital cost still in the asset, is added back on a line of its own: the capital part of gains and losses on lease changes.

LEASES IN THE FILING

In the iXBRL file, lease liabilities are now tagged as lease liabilities, within one year and after more than one year; the right-of-use columns of the fixed asset note are tagged as right-of-use assets of their class, with an owned column of the same class tagged as owned; and the leases note's expense figures are tagged. The tax note is tagged throughout.

HANDING THE BOOKS OVER

A handover file now carries the lease register: the leases, the changes to them, the month-end runs and the variable payments for each year. A refresh replaces the register whole, and is refused, naming the lease, where this copy holds lease work the file does not.

Journals that were reversed or corrected, and accruals with their automatic reversals, now arrive in a handover file still linked to each other.

FIND AND RECODE

Accounting, Find and recode, finds transaction lines by type, account, contact, date, amount, VAT rate, reference or tracking tag, and changes their account, VAT or tags together. Approved invoices and bills are moved by a recode entry on their own date, bank lines are coded again, and journals are reversed and posted again, so the ledger keeps what was there. Locked periods are left alone, and every recode is kept in a history.

CAPITAL ALLOWANCES FROM 2026

- The 40% first year allowance on new main rate plant bought from 1 January 2026, for companies (on plant bought to lease out, unless leased for use overseas) and for sole traders and partnerships. - The 100% allowances on new zero-emission cars and electric vehicle charge-points, to 31 March 2027. - The 40% allowance, zero-emission cars and charge-points go in the company tax return in the boxes HMRC say to use, with the spending on each allowance.

LOANS TO PARTICIPATORS FROM 6 APRIL 2026

A loan made from 6 April 2026 is charged at 35.75%. HMRC's service takes that rate only from 6 April 2027, so until then the CT600A carries the charge at 33.75%, as HMRC instruct, and the return says how much short that is and that the full charge is still due by the usual date.

ALSO IN THIS RELEASE

An import from another package that fails part way now leaves the company's currencies exactly as they were before it started.

THE MANUALS

There is a new chapter, Leases, covering the whole of it: adding a lease, what has to be answered before it is recognised, coding the rent, payments that depend on use, the month-end journals, the three figures that have to agree, recording a change, a break and a payment to leave, the corporation tax treatment, what appears in the year-end accounts, and handing the books over. It has a picture of the register with its figures agreeing.

There is also a new chapter, Find and recode. The corporation tax chapter has a Deferred tax section and a Leases section and covers the 40% and 100% allowances, and the year-end accounts chapter has The tax note. The Practice manual is fifteen pages longer than at 2.9.32, the Business manual fifteen.

Every import now asks the currency of the old books, books filed at one rate come in as filed to the penny, foreign balances are retranslated at each year end, every figure is checked before the import is kept, and the Journals screen filters what was posted by hand from what Murgese posted.

One thing to do.

If you imported a company from books kept in another currency on 2.9.31, clear its books under Import your books, Start this company again, and import it again. Choose the currency of the old books, and where its accounts were filed in sterling at one rate, give that rate and the date the accounts ran to.

THE CURRENCY OF THE OLD BOOKS

Every import, from Xero or QuickBooks, now asks which currency the old books were kept in: the currency every figure in the old package's general ledger is in. The box starts empty, and nothing is imported until it is chosen. Books kept in dollars look exactly like books kept in pounds, and every journal balances either way, so Murgese does not take the absence of a currency to mean sterling.

Where the QuickBooks account list has its Currency column, its answer is offered beside the box with a button to use it, and a different answer is refused until the two agree. For books kept in another currency the account list is needed, because it is the only file that says which accounts are held in which currency. For a sterling company, choose GBP, and the review says that nothing is converted.

ONE RATE UP TO A DATE, AS FILED ACCOUNTS OFTEN ARE

Accounts filed in sterling from books kept in dollars are often translated at one rate for the whole period. Converting the same books at twelve monthly rates moves every figure, and the imported books would not match what was filed.

Under Translate up to a date at one rate, give the last date the filed accounts covered and the rate they used. Every transaction to that date is translated at that rate, the sterling bank accounts' lines included, as the filed accounts translated them, and no monthly rate is needed for those months. Add a second stretch for a second filed year at its own rate. Each line is rounded on its own, so one journal at the end of the stretch squares each account to the file's total at that rate, and the odd pennies go to an account of their own. The imported books then match the filed accounts line for line, before the adjustments made when the accounts were prepared, which you post as journals.

BANK ACCOUNTS

Every bank account needs a currency: the one the account list states, or one you choose beside it on the review screen. The import waits while any is left unchosen.

A bank account's statement is in its own currency, so the general ledger has to give each line in that currency. For an account held in the books' own currency, its figures already are. For any other, run the General Ledger report with QuickBooks' Foreign Amount column added. Where a line has no figure in the account's currency, the import stops and names the account and its first lines, rather than leaving lines off its statement.

The review now shows every bank account with the currency it is held in, its balance in the ledger in pounds and its balance on its statement in its own currency, before anything is written.

RATES THAT LOOK WRONG

A rate typed upside down (0.80 dollars to the pound is what a dollar costs in pounds), one far outside the range the currency trades in, or one far from the months either side of it, is held until you correct it or tick that it is right. The review gives a worked example of the rate's direction. An invoice or bill dated in a month needs a rate for that month as much as a journal does.

The review also shows every account in the file's own currency beside its converted figure, with both totals, which must each be nil.

CHECKED BEFORE IT IS KEPT

The import runs only on the plan you reviewed. If a file, a rate, a currency, an account or an option changes after the files were checked, nothing is written and you are asked to check again.

Before the import is kept, what it wrote is checked against the review: every journal balances, every account agrees with the file converted, every bank account's ledger and statement are as reviewed, the documents agree with the control accounts, and no statement line has been left off. Any difference, and nothing is kept.

The currency confirmed, who confirmed it, the rates used month by month and the bank currencies are kept with the company as the record of its import. Comparing the books with the file later converts at the same rates, whatever has been entered since, and bringing documents across again converts them the same way.

FOREIGN BALANCES AT EACH YEAR END

FRS 102 and FRS 105 record each foreign-currency transaction at the rate on its date, or at a month's average where the rate does not move much, and then put every balance held in a foreign currency at the closing rate at each reporting date, with the difference in profit and loss. Books converted at the rates of their transactions leave a dollar bank account at those rates at every year end in the history, so the review and the result now name each year end inside the history (outside any one-rate stretch), and the result opens the period-end retranslation on the Currencies screen at each one. Enter the closing rate dated the year end first: HMRC's monthly rate is set in the month before, so it is not a closing rate.

A retranslation at a past date now asks only for the rates of currencies held on that date, rather than of any currency used since.

One rate for a whole period is not the method the standards set where the rate moved significantly during it. It is offered so that a period already filed that way comes in as filed; for a period not yet filed, use the monthly rates and the year-end retranslation.

THE COMPARISON AFTERWARDS

For books kept in another currency, the comparison after the import shows each account three ways: the file's own figure in its own currency, that figure converted exactly as the import converted it, and the figure in Murgese, at the date the file runs to.

MATCHING TO THE FILED ACCOUNTS

The step that matches converted balances to the filed accounts now lets you choose the account the differences go to. It is for differences of translation: adjustments made when the accounts were prepared, such as an accrual, costs capitalised or expenses a director paid, belong in journals to their own accounts, so post those first and match what is left.

A BANK ACCOUNT'S CURRENCY

An empty bank account's currency can be corrected from Edit account in the chart of accounts, so one made in the wrong currency does not have to be deleted and made again. Once statement lines are on it, the change is refused and the message says why.

THE JOURNALS SCREEN

The Journals screen lists every posting in the books, and journals typed by hand were hard to find among the thousands posted by invoices, bills and bank lines. Show journals from now picks every posting, those posted by hand (with their reversals, corrections and recurring postings), those Murgese posted itself, or one source on its own, such as sales invoices, bills, bank lines, payroll, depreciation, opening balances or an import. Each choice shows its count. The line above the list says how many postings are shown, the search looks within what the filter shows, and Export CSV exports what is on the screen.

THE MANUALS

The importing chapter describes the currency of the old books, what the accounting standards ask, one rate up to a date, bank account currencies, rates that look wrong and the checks before an import is kept. The journals chapter describes the filter, and the chart of accounts chapter correcting a bank account's currency.

QuickBooks books kept in another currency now come in converted to sterling, with a step to match them to the filed accounts; a bank account can be held in any currency; and Section 1A and charity accounts print in whole pounds, every total adding up.

Two things to do.

If you imported a QuickBooks company whose books are kept in another currency, clear its books under Import your books, Start this company again, and import it again. It will now come in converted to sterling.

If you printed Section 1A or charity accounts for signature on an earlier version and have not filed them, print them again, so the copy that is signed is the copy that is filed.

QUICKBOOKS BOOKS KEPT IN ANOTHER CURRENCY

A QuickBooks company can keep its books in another currency: its home currency there might be US dollars, with bank accounts in pounds, dollars and any other currency. Murgese now reads the Currency column of the QuickBooks account list (Reports, Standard, Account List). Income and expense accounts are always in the home currency, so when they are not sterling, every figure in the general ledger is in that currency, including the lines on the sterling bank accounts.

Murgese keeps a company's ledger in sterling, so such a ledger is converted to pounds on the way in, transaction by transaction, at the rate for its month. The review screen says which currency the books are in and why, and lists each month with the rate it will use. Where a month has no rate, one button fetches HMRC's monthly rates for the months named, or you can enter your own under Currencies; a rate you typed is never overwritten. The import waits until every month has a rate.

Every converted transaction still balances to the penny, and when the import finishes the trial balance is compared with the file converted the same way, so a green result still means every account agrees. Run the General Ledger report in QuickBooks with the Foreign Amount column added, and a line on a sterling bank account keeps the exact pounds the bank moved, so the account agrees with its bank statement to the penny.

Bank accounts come in held in the currency the account list gives them, and those currencies are switched on for the company. A dollar account's statement lines are in dollars wherever the file says what they were. Where it does not, the lines are in the ledger but not on the bank screen, the result names the account, and the year-end retranslation leaves it alone until its statement is imported.

MATCHING THE CONVERTED BALANCES TO THE FILED ACCOUNTS

Converted at monthly rates, the balances are a fair translation but not necessarily the figures the company's accounts were filed with. So after a converted import the screen asks you to match them. Choose a year end whose accounts were filed in sterling, type the filed figure beside each balance that differs (for a sterling bank account, its bank statement balance), and post. Each account is made its filed figure, and the differences go to exchange differences in one journal dated that day.

A BANK ACCOUNT IN ANY CURRENCY

A new bank account can be held in any currency, from the Bank screen or from the chart of accounts, by choosing it in the Held in box. Every currency is offered, and choosing one that is not yet switched on for the company switches it on as the account is saved.

On an invoice or bill in another currency, every amount is in that currency, the unit prices included, and the unit price column is headed with the currency's symbol.

THE YEAR-END RETRANSLATION

The retranslation of foreign balances at a period end works for a company whose only foreign balances are bank accounts, with no trade debtors or creditors account. A foreign bank account whose statement is not yet in Murgese is named and left as it is, because what it holds in its own currency is not known yet.

SECTION 1A AND CHARITY ACCOUNTS IN WHOLE POUNDS

Section 1A (FRS 102) accounts and charity accounts now print in whole pounds, on screen, in the PDF and in the iXBRL filing, the same way as micro-entity accounts. Every total is the nearest pound to the true total, and the lines above it are rounded so that they add up to it exactly, each to the pound below or above its own figure. A line that is nil stays nil. Every column adds up, every row adds up, and the notes say the same thing as the face of the accounts.

SECTION 1A: THE FACE OF THE ACCOUNTS

Every subtotal of the profit and loss account (gross profit, operating profit, profit before tax, profit for the financial year) is its nearest pound and the lines under it add up to it. Profit before tax is the figure the company tax return compares with the corporation tax computation, so the two agree.

The balance sheet balances to the pound, with net assets and total equity one figure. Fixed assets and net current assets add up to total assets less current liabilities. Three figures each rounded on their own need not add up: £1,000.50 and £2,000.50 are 1,001 and 2,001, and their total of £3,001.00 is 3,001, not 3,002. So now and then one of the first two is printed at the pound on its other side, still within a pound of its own figure.

SECTION 1A: THE NOTES AND THE OTHER STATEMENTS

The notes that analyse a line (stocks, debtors, creditors falling due within one year, creditors falling due after more than one year, and called up share capital) add up to that line on the balance sheet, this year and last.

The tangible and intangible fixed assets notes add up down each class (cost brought forward, additions and disposals to cost carried forward; depreciation likewise; cost less depreciation to net book value) and across the classes to the balance sheet, at the start of the year and at the end.

The statement of changes in equity opens and closes on the share capital, share premium and profit and loss account the two balance sheets show. The statement of cash flows starts and ends on the cash at bank they show. The detailed profit and loss account ends on the profit on the face of the accounts.

CHARITIES: THE STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES

The statement adds up down every fund column (unrestricted, restricted and endowment) and down the total column, and across every line from the fund columns to the total. Every figure is within a pound of the figure in your books, and total funds carried forward are the net assets on the balance sheet. Funds brought forward are last year's funds carried forward as printed.

Three totals each rounded on their own need not add up either: £45,219.25 of income less £21,724.59 of expenditure is £23,494.66 of net income, and 45,219 less 21,725 is 23,494, not 23,495. Where that happens net income takes the pound, so total income and total expenditure stay their own nearest pound: they are the figures you report in the annual return and elsewhere.

CHARITIES: THE NOTES

The movement in funds note adds up fund by fund, from funds brought forward through income, expenditure and transfers to funds carried forward. The funds of each kind add up to that kind's column on the statement, figure by figure, and transfers between funds net to nil.

The analysis of net assets between funds adds up down each fund column to the funds that column carries forward, and across each line to the balance sheet's own figure for it.

WHAT STILL READS TO THE PENNY

The check that the accounts balance, the audit exemption thresholds, the charity scrutiny thresholds, and approval all still read your books to the penny, because a threshold is a threshold.

THE MANUALS

The importing chapter describes books kept in another currency and matching the balances to the filed accounts. The currencies, bank and chart of accounts chapters describe choosing a bank account's currency. The statutory accounts and charities chapters describe how Section 1A and charity accounts are rounded.

Micro-entity accounts print in whole pounds and the company tax return agrees with them, with profits in whole pounds and tax to the penny. Directors and people with significant control come across from Companies House into the identity checks. The line on the other account names a transfer and offers to join it. A bank account that began with an opening balance starts its statement from it. Dialogues and their columns can be sized, and stay that way.

THE COMPANY TAX RETURN IN WHOLE POUNDS AND PENCE, MICRO-ENTITY ACCOUNTS IN WHOLE POUNDS, THE OTHER HALF OF A TRANSFER, THE OPENING BALANCE ON THE BANK SCREEN, DIRECTORS AND PSCS FROM COMPANIES HOUSE, AND DIALOGUES YOU CAN RESIZE (2.9.29)

MICRO-ENTITY ACCOUNTS AND THE TAX RETURN, IN WHOLE POUNDS

Micro-entity accounts print in whole pounds, on screen, in the PDF and in the iXBRL filing, and every column adds up: each total is the nearest pound to the true total, and the lines above it are rounded to add to it exactly. The profit before tax is held at its nearest pound, so the accounts and the computation agree. Section 1A and charity accounts print pounds and pence for now.

The company tax return states profits in whole pounds and tax in pounds and pence, as HMRC do. Profits are rounded once, so every sum HMRC make between the boxes holds, and a period falling in two financial years is split in whole pounds by HMRC's own rule. The tax is the whole-pound profit times the rate, to the penny, and never rounded to a pound, so the screen, the computation, the return and the charge in your books carry the same figure and paying the return clears the liability to nil.

One thing to do. Prepare the computation and the return again for any period you prepared on an earlier version.

DIRECTORS AND PEOPLE WITH SIGNIFICANT CONTROL FROM COMPANIES HOUSE

Where a Companies House key is saved, Fetch from Companies House brings serving directors and PSCs into References & identity and into the compliance deadlines, with a PSC's birth month, which their verification window is worked out from. Everyone arrives as not yet verified. Nobody is added twice and nothing you have typed is changed. A check can now be completed or changed in place.

THE BANK SCREEN

When money moves between two of your own accounts, the line on the other account names the transfer under its description and offers to join it, so it is posted once. A line fits when it is on another of your accounts, in the same currency, for exactly the same amount the other way, and within five days either side.

Where a company's books began with a trial balance, the statement figure starts from the opening balance and says so: "statement includes £17.25 brought forward at 18 Apr 2026". The running balance, the reconciliation report and the bank working paper start from the same figure. A matched line says what it settled, and the balances at the top keep up as you code.

DIALOGUES YOU CAN RESIZE

Any dialogue can be dragged bigger or smaller by an edge or a bottom corner, and the square button beside the close button fills the window with it. Murgese remembers the size of each kind of dialogue, and the widths of the columns inside it.

Also: each heading appears once in the account list, in profit and loss then balance sheet order; changing company from the sidebar opens the screen afresh; and Tab after choosing an account goes to the next box.

THE MANUALS

Every screenshot is new. There are new sections on transfers between your own accounts, the brought-forward figure on the bank screen, sizing a dialogue, fetching directors and PSCs from the register, and how the whole pounds are rounded. The Practice manual is 285 pages and the Business manual 233.

The full notes are at murgese.co.uk/updates.

A company's first period of account runs from the day it was incorporated to its first year end, usually more than twelve months, so it takes two corporation tax returns rather than one. Murgese found the two returns and got five things around them wrong. All five are put right: the profit is divided by days, the accounts start at incorporation, the calendar lists both returns and both payments, each return keeps its own working papers, and each return now says on the form what it is.

A company's first period of account runs from the day it was incorporated to its first year end, and that is usually more than twelve months. A company incorporated on 10 March 2025 with a 31 March year-end has a first period of 387 days. An accounting period for corporation tax cannot be longer than twelve months, so that is two company tax returns: 10 March 2025 to 9 March 2026, and 10 March to 31 March 2026.

Murgese found the two returns, and got five things around them wrong. All five are put right.

THE PROFIT IS DIVIDED BY DAYS

Each return used to take the transactions dated in it. The rule is the other way round: the profit of the whole period of account is shared between the returns by days (CTA 2009 s52(3)), and HMRC accept another basis only where it gives a more accurate result. So by days is now the default. The computation shows the whole period's profit, the days, and each return's share, and the two shares add back to the accounts to the penny. Dividing by the transactions is still offered, for a business with a few large and easily dated transactions, and it asks for the reason, which is printed on the computation because it is the question HMRC will ask.

THE ACCOUNTS START ON THE DAY OF INCORPORATION

Every period used to be twelve months to the year end, so the first accounts began three weeks after the company existed and the first three weeks of its trading were in no accounts at all. A first period now runs from the date of incorporation, has no comparative year, and is headed "for the period ended". The corporation tax screen offers the same period.

The date of incorporation can now be typed on Settings, beside the company number, in both editions. Before, only a Companies House lookup could set it, so a company keeping its own books never had a first period at all. In Practice edition, a Companies House refresh still shows the register's date and applies it when you tick it.

A company that started trading some time after it was incorporated can give the date it came within the charge to corporation tax. Its first accounting period starts that day, and the costs of the weeks before are treated as incurred on the first day of trading, so they stay in the return.

THE CALENDAR LISTS BOTH RETURNS AND BOTH PAYMENTS

The tax on the first twelve months is due nine months and a day after they end, which for the company above is 10 December 2026, three weeks before the second return's tax. The calendar used to show one payment on the later date. It now shows two payments on their own dates, and two returns, both due twelve months after the end of the period of account. It no longer lists a "year to 31 March 2025" for a company three weeks old.

EACH RETURN KEEPS ITS OWN WORKING PAPERS

Losses brought forward, capital allowance pools, loans to participators, group relief and the rest are kept for each return separately, so the second return no longer inherits the first return's figures. The pools for the second return come from the first. The chooser says which return is on screen, and the charge is dated at the end of that return.

THE RETURN SAYS WHAT IT IS

Both returns go in with the same accounts, which cover the whole period of account, and each with its own computation. Each return now says that more than one return is being made for the company (box 50) and that the accounts attached are for a different period (box 85). The check that the attachments agree compares the accounts with the whole period of account and its profit, and the computation with the return. It used to refuse every such pair as covering different periods, so neither return could be prepared. Box 45 was carrying box 50's wording; it now says what it is, a claim or relief affecting an earlier period.

Both manuals are rebuilt at 2.9.27, 276 pages and 225, with a new section on a company's first year in the corporation tax chapter.

A bank account and its ledger account are one account, and their name is now held as one. Renaming an account in the chart used to leave the bank screen offering the old name, because the name sat in two places and was copied in one direction only, and then only where the two already matched. They are kept together now, whichever screen, import or process makes the change, and books that already disagree are put right the first time 2.9.26 opens them.

One change, reported from a practice using the software.

ONE ACCOUNT, ONE NAME

Rename the bank account in your chart of accounts, and the bank screen went on offering the old name.

A bank account and its ledger account are one account, but the name was held in two places: once in the chart, and once on the bank record. The bank screen's label took the code from the chart and the name from the bank record, so one label mixed the account as it is with the account as it was.

A rename made on the bank screen was copied to the chart, and only where the two names already matched. A rename made in the chart was copied nowhere. Nor were the other ways a name changes: an import renaming an account that already exists, a change of business type swapping a built-in account's name, or a correction typed on the import review screen.

THEY ARE KEPT TOGETHER NOW

Rename the account in the chart and the bank screen follows. Rename it on the bank screen and the chart follows. It does not depend on which screen, import or process made the change, which is the point: a rule that has to be remembered at every screen that writes a name is a rule the next screen breaks.

Books that already disagree are put right the first time 2.9.26 opens them, taking the chart's name, because the chart is what the accounts print from.

Adding a bank account against an account already in the chart, and typing a different name for it, now renames it in the chart as well. An imported bank account takes the name you corrected it to on the review screen rather than the name in the file.

ONE EXCEPTION, ON PURPOSE

An older installation can have two bank records attached to a single ledger account. Those keep their own names, because one name for both would make them impossible to tell apart on the screen whose job is to tell them apart.

A QuickBooks migration now starts from a named report rather than a menu gesture, and the four exports that cannot work are refused by name. One of them was being read as a general ledger and would have replaced the accounting records while the screen showed a green tick. Bank statements carrying screen-reader labels printed too small to see, as Lloyds does, are now read in full, with the summary box and every payment reference. Both manuals are rebuilt, 275 pages and 224.

The site has been on 2.9.23 since 24 September, so this covers two releases rather than one. Both came out of real work on real files: a QuickBooks migration watched on a live screen, and a bank statement that would not import.

A QUICKBOOKS MIGRATION, AND THE INSTRUCTION THAT WAS THE FAULT

Murgese used to tell you to export sales invoices from "Sales > Invoices > Export" and bills from "Expenses > Bills > Export". That is a menu gesture, not a report name. QuickBooks offers at least six reports answering to that description and two of them work. An experienced accountant followed the instruction and produced, in order, the two worst choices available.

It now names the report: Reports > Standard > Open Invoices, and Reports > Standard > Unpaid Bills. The alternative on each side is named, the two to avoid are named, and there is a single test anybody can apply: the report must carry an Open balance column.

Said plainly on the screen and in the manual for the first time: the invoice and bill files are OPTIONAL, and no figure in your books comes from them. Every balance comes from the general ledger. They are there so a document can be looked up later and so the aged list can be checked against its control account. If the right report is hard to get, skip them.

FOUR EXPORTS ARE NOW REFUSED BY NAME

Paid Bills and Paid Invoices carry only documents settled in full and have no outstanding column at all, so every row reads as wholly unpaid. A file of bills long since paid would have arrived as a creditors balance that does not exist.

Bills and Applied Payments, and Invoices and Received Payments, carry the right figures in the wrong shape, with the contact named only in a section heading.

The first of those was the serious one. Its columns are Date, Transaction type and Amount, which is the whole of the general ledger test, so it was being read as a general ledger. There is one general ledger slot and it replaces rather than adds, so uploading that file would have overwritten the real accounting records while the file panel showed a green tick.

Murgese now reads the report's own name from the top of the sheet before it looks at the columns. It already trusted that name to tell a customer list from a supplier list. A title it does not recognise falls through to the column tests exactly as before.

And this is not a QuickBooks rule. Any invoice or bill export with no outstanding column and no status word will read as wholly unpaid, whoever wrote it. Murgese now says so on sight, names the consequence, and names the report to take instead.

THE REFUSALS SAY ONLY WHAT IS SO

Three corrections, all of them a message asserting something it had not checked. "One row on this statement print" now reads "prints". Dates in refusals are shown as 03/03/2025 rather than 2025-03-03, which is how the statement in front of you writes them. And the sentence saying a difference of exactly twice one of the figures means a payment was read as a receipt used to appear on every summary disagreement, whether or not it was true. It names a row now only where exactly one row accounts for the difference.

All of this was checked against a statement of exactly the kind that failed, read and imported from end to end, with every transaction, the summary and every reference.

Corporation tax proved end to end against HMRC's own services: their validation service found nothing wrong with the return on 22 September and their External Test Service accepted one on 23 September. Five statutory profit and loss lines that had been missing since the format was written are added.

The update feed has been on 2.9.15 since 22 September, so this is what has changed across eight releases rather than one. Most of it is the corporation tax return, which has now been through both of HMRC's testing services. The rest is a statutory format that was short of five lines, an importer that was not reading account names, and a handful of screens.

WHAT HMRC'S OWN SERVICES SAID, AND WHAT THAT DOES AND DOES NOT MEAN

On 22 September the Third Party Validation Service returned "HMRC's validation service found nothing wrong with this return" for the period 1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025. The CT600, the business rules, the accounts iXBRL and the computation iXBRL passed together.

On 23 September the External Test Service accepted a return. It had rejected the same return the day before, and it was right to.

Neither of those is a filing and neither is recognition. The validation service checks a return against the schema and the business rules and files nothing. The External Test Service runs HMRC's own engine against HMRC's test data and records nothing against any company. A computation that adds up to the wrong tax passes the first as readily as one that does not. The External Test Service is the harder of the two because it recomputes the return, and that is how it found the fault below.

Filing to HMRC still requires recognition, which Murgese does not have. The software refuses any submission that would file.

BOX 326 WAS WRONG ON EVERY RETURN THIS SOFTWARE HAD PRODUCED

The field behind box 326 held the divisor rather than the count. One meant "no associated companies", while the label on the screen said "Associated companies" and defaulted to one. So the screen asked for one thing and the return carried another, and the two readings failed in opposite directions.

CTA 2010 s18D divides the rate limits by one plus the number of associated companies. On the rejected return, HMRC read box 326 as one associate, halved the limits to 25,000 and 125,000, put a profit of 44,026 into the marginal band and expected marginal relief of 1,214.61 that the return did not carry. The tax differed by 1,426.95.

Who it affected: a profit under 25,000 saw nothing, because it is under the limit on either reading. Between 25,000 and 50,000 HMRC expect relief and the return is rejected. Above 50,000 the company is marginal on both readings and the relief disagrees.

The field now means what its label says, the number of OTHER associated companies, and nought is the ordinary case. Box 326 is left out entirely at nought rather than sent as a zero. The instalment payment thresholds divided the same wrong way and are corrected with it.

Working papers saved before this release are converted when they are opened, by subtracting one, so each computes exactly the tax it computed before. Nothing you have typed changes value and nothing needs retyping.

THE WHOLE EXCHANGE WITH HMRC IS NOW KEPT

HMRC's Document Submission Protocol is a cycle of six messages. This software produced two of them, and the acknowledgement was being overwritten by the response because both were written to one column.

Every message is now kept, one row each, in order, named by the GovTalk qualifier and function that identify it. The delete is sent, on a final outcome only, to the address the answer came from, and a delete that fails cannot take the answer down with it. Credentials are removed as the row is written rather than as it is packed, so no copy is left to forget.

There is a button on each sent return that produces the whole exchange as a zip, one file per message, with a note naming the company, the period, the service, the vendor id as actually sent, the correlation id, the IRmark and the outcome.

ELEMENT NAMES, SETTLED FROM THE SCHEMAS RATHER THAN ONE AT A TIME

HMRC's validator stops at the first bad element name, so every submission bought exactly one. Reading HMRC's Prescription of Computations, their CT2024 taxonomy pack and the FRC 2026 suite in full settled the rest at once: eleven computation names HMRC do not declare, both capital allowance pool names, the structures and buildings allowance, the residual intangible asset class, and the accounting policy grouping, which turned out to be a typed counter rather than a list.

Three figures have no element in HMRC's computation taxonomy at all and now print untagged with the reason beside them rather than under a wrong name.

Every reportable fact also sits inside a hypercube that declares the dimensions it must carry, and every context this software had produced was undimensioned. Seven rounds at the validation service never reached that layer. It is built from HMRC's own definition linkbase and a test checks every fact in a rendered computation against it.

SCHEDULE 1 FORMAT 1 WAS SHORT OF FIVE STATUTORY LINES

The profit and loss account has sixteen items in force and this software carried eight. Income from shares in group undertakings, income from participating interests, income from other fixed asset investments, amounts written off investments, and other taxes not shown elsewhere had been missing since the format was written.

They were missing because the format was written down in seven places at once, so adding a line meant editing all seven or watching the accounts break in three ways. The arithmetic is now one running total down the format, proved to the penny against the old arithmetic before a single line was added.

The item numbers were also wrong from item 10 down. SI 2015/980 removed the extraordinary items and did not renumber what was left, so the format runs 1 to 14 and then jumps to 19 and 20. Item 12's statutory caption became "interest payable and similar expenses" in 2015 and still said charges.

A dividend from a subsidiary had nowhere to go and was being tagged as other interest, on an element whose own label excludes it. That is a presentation argument on paper and a wrong fact in a filing.

THE IMPORTER THAT READ NO ACCOUNT NAMES

A QuickBooks ledger of thirty six accounts imported with every one of them called an overhead, including a bank account with 213 postings and the creditors control with 90. The screen said the types had been guessed from the account names. Nothing had read a name: the reader returned nothing every time and the caller printed that nothing as an answer.

There is a reader now, and more to the point an account it cannot place stops the import rather than becoming an overhead quietly. It is highlighted, the refusal names up to five of them, and you clear it by setting the type on the review screen. A name carrying two stories, such as "Cash - Loans", is left for a person rather than guessed at.

SCREENS

One submission was showing its IRmark twice in two encodings on one screen. The stored value is unchanged and still the one HMRC hashed; it is converted for display.

The client list can be searched on registered name, trading name and company number, with the number matched without its spaces, and filtered on status, review state and licence. Every column sorts, numbers as numbers, and the choices are remembered per person.

Deleting several bank statement lines at once now deletes what was ticked. It used to take the coding bar's set instead, so a mixed selection deleted part of itself silently and a selection of coded lines did nothing at all. A coded line still cannot be deleted while it has a journal behind it, but the screen now says so and offers the way out on the same bar.

A job board badge fitted on most days and was drawn past the edge of its card when a job landed exactly seven days out.

Four errors from an HMRC validation run are fixed, including the tax on each financial year, which now follows HMRC's own arithmetic on the figures the form actually carries; the job board says how late every overdue job is and filters five ways; and a practice licence banner now names what is outside cover and what to do about it.

The update feed has been on 2.9.10 since 20 September, so this is what has changed across five releases rather than one. Most of it is the corporation tax return and the job board. The rest is a licence banner that now says what to do about it.

THE CT600L AND CT600P PAGES

Two supplementary pages are named as not produced, on the box that would have called for them. The CT600L, because research and development relief is not computed here. The CT600P, the creative industries page, because sixty-six boxes reporting reliefs this product does not compute would be a form with nothing to put in it. A company claiming film, theatre or video games relief needs a return this software does not make, and being told so on the screen where it is filing is worth more than empty boxes that validate.

The iXBRL attachments had two errors of element order, both now fixed, and the FRC taxonomy suites the accounts tag against are confirmed rather than assumed.

THE JOB BOARD

Overdue jobs say how late they are: the number of days in red, the date beside it, a red edge down the card and a late count on each column heading. A job due today is not overdue, and a completed job is not overdue however late it was finished.

Filters for search, client, who it is assigned to, service line and due state, remembered per person between visits. The overdue count on the bar is of the whole board rather than of what is on screen, so narrowing to one client cannot hide that the practice is nineteen jobs behind, and pressing the count narrows the board to them. The practice dashboard shows the same figures from the same function, so the two screens cannot differ by a day.

THE LICENCE BANNER NOW SAYS WHAT TO DO

A practice licence carries the number of client companies it covers inside the signature on the key, so raising the number in the publisher and not issuing a new key leaves the firm covered for the old one. The banner used to stop at the count. It now says where the number came from, how many companies are outside it, that entries in those companies have stopped, and the one thing that puts it right.

A PDF statement is read from the running balance the bank printed rather than from its layout, so a bank nobody taught it still reads, every row can be corrected before the checks, and nothing it cannot read is thrown away.

The bank screen reads the bank's own PDF statement and brings it in only if it reconciles, a refusal from HMRC now says whether HMRC ever saw the return at all, and a profitable micro-entity company can file its CT600 again.

The bank screen takes the bank's own PDF as well as a CSV. It is read in the window and nothing leaves the machine. The columns are found from the headings and every figure is placed by the column it sits under, because nothing in the text of a statement says whether a figure went in or out: 3,000.00 paid out and 20,000.00 paid in are the same characters, and only where they sit on the page tells them apart. A statement with no text in it at all, a scan or a photograph, is read from the picture instead, which takes about a minute a page and says so while it works.

A PDF is brought in only if it reconciles, and there is no way past that. Three things have to agree with what was read: the column totals against the statement's own summary box where it prints one, the opening balance plus receipts less payments against the closing balance, and every running balance the bank printed against the movements up to that row. The bank printed all of them at the same moment, so they cannot disagree unless the file has been read wrongly, and where one does the import is refused and the message says which, because a column read backwards and a row dropped are different things to put right. The CSV import keeps its override, because a CSV can be edited by hand. A PDF is the bank's own document.

Where a statement prints no opening balance at all, as Lloyds does, it is worked out from the balance beside the first transaction. Everything after that row is then proved by the bank's own running balance and that row is not, so the screen names it and asks you to check that one line is the right way round.

Every row on the preview has a tick and they all start ticked, and the preview shows every row rather than the first few, because nobody can untick a line they were never shown. There are good reasons to leave one out: a payment already entered by hand, a transfer that will arrive on the other account's statement as well, a charge belonging to a period already closed. What is left out is applied after the checks, so a statement that does not reconcile cannot be made to import by unticking the row that breaks it.

Check it with HMRC tells the two kinds of refusal apart. A 403 arriving as a web page was stopped at the edge of gov.uk, and HMRC never saw the return at all, which is a different thing from HMRC refusing it. The body is read before the status now, so the screen says which happened and what to do about it. The audit trail was recording the first kind as an error reported by HMRC, which would read years later as HMRC having found a fault in a return they never received.

A micro-entity return could not be filed. The check that compares the computation with the accounts read the profit before tax, fell back to the profit after tax where there was none, and reported the difference as a disagreement. FRS 105 has no before-tax line on the face of the accounts, so every profitable micro-entity company failed the check by exactly its own corporation tax charge. The charge is added back now, with the working shown.

The deadlines panel is bounded to the window it says it covers. It had been explaining a filing deadline from 2016 under a heading about the months ahead, and warning about clients whose dates were not on the screen. Each caveat now says whether that client has anything in the window, and the ones that do not are shown separately.

The user manual is re-cut at this version, 277 pages for the Practice edition and 226 for the Business edition.

A record a client emailed in opens from its name and a whole period can go into the ledger at once, the compliance board listens to every setting that feeds it, the payroll screen reads a P32, and every row on Income and Expenses by Contact opens onto what is behind it.

A record a client has emailed in opens from its name. The files were filed correctly against the period all along, and the only thing you could do with one was delete it, because the name was plain text. A period holding documents the reader can open now also offers to read the whole pile into the ledger at once, rather than a download each and a re-drop. It asks which kind they are, because a client who emails their invoices may mean the ones they issued or the ones they received. Nothing is entered without somebody looking at it.

The compliance board listens to every setting that feeds it. Saving a client's settings rebuilt the board only where the year end had moved, so registering for VAT, entering a PAYE reference, setting a CIS role, marking a company dormant or correcting an entity type all left the board exactly as it was, silently. Clearing a role now takes unstarted work back off the board as well, because a board that only ever grows will tell you to file for a company that stopped being a contractor.

The payroll screen reads a P32, the Employer's Payments report most payroll software prints. The file is read in the window and does not leave the machine, and the months come out with their PAYE, National Insurance and the amount due, one going into the boxes for you to check rather than being imported. It reads by column position rather than word order, because most of a P32 is empty, and every row is checked against the amount the report prints as due, so one that does not add up cannot be used. A P32 answers six boxes and has never carried gross pay, net pay or pensions, so the screen names the ones still to be typed.

Every row on Income and Expenses by Contact opens. A large total against no contact at all had nowhere to go. The anonymous row opens on the reasons first, because why nothing has a contact on it is the question being asked: a journal has none by nature, an opening balance was brought in, the payroll is posted in total, and a coded bank line with nobody on it is the only kind you can fix, which the row says. What opens cannot disagree with the row it came from: the same query, differing only in grouping by posting rather than by contact, and the screen says so if the two totals ever part.

Fixed: both buttons on the company tax return, Prepare and Check it with HMRC, reported a request failure rather than reaching the tagged accounts at all. Nothing was wrong with the accounts or with the check.

And Check it with HMRC now says what HMRC said. A refusal came back as the validation service returning 403, which was true and a dead end. Their own explanation existed in the software all along and was dropped before it reached the screen. It is shown now under a disclosure, capped rather than whole, and only their answer, since what was sent is a tax return. A bare status gets words as well: 403 and 401 say the request reached the service and this sender is not entitled to use it, and name the two usual causes, a vendor id not enabled for it and the address, which is not the submission address.

Fixed: a column heading was read as an invoice number. A heading row reading Invoice Number, Reference, Date, Amount is one line of text, so the word taken after the label was the next heading rather than the number underneath, on every document from that supplier. Worse, accepting a heading looks like a successful read, so the fall back to the file name never fired while the file was named after the invoice. Where a word sits on the page now decides it: the value under a heading is looked for in the row beneath, in the same column.

The user manual is re-cut at this version, 277 pages for the Practice edition and 226 for the Business edition. The screenshots have not been re-taken, so the screens changed here show earlier figures.

Where a client sends their records from is a field now, and a records mailbox behind an antivirus or a company firewall can be told which certificate to trust.

Where a client sends their records from is a field now, on their Settings tab. The rule that places an incoming message by its sender could only ever match a client's main email address, so a client who sends receipts from a different account landed in the unmatched tray every time, which is most of them. Give the address and the post files itself against the client.

A records mailbox that will not connect because of its certificate can be told what to trust. Murgese keeps its own list of trusted authorities rather than using Windows', which is why a mailbox Outlook opens without complaint can fail here: an antivirus or a company firewall is scanning the connection and presenting its own certificate. The Records mailbox tab now reads the chain and names the authority actually issuing it, which is usually the whole diagnosis, and that one authority can be trusted alongside the usual ones. The hostname and the expiry are still checked afterwards, and nothing else stops being verified.

There is a last resort that turns certificate checking off altogether for the mailbox. It says so plainly and it goes in the audit trail.

This is kept separate from the sending account on purpose. The two are frequently different hosts at different providers, and trusting an authority in order to read post is not a decision about sending it.

Also fixed: a mailbox whose app password had expired reported "Command failed" and nothing else, because the server's own words were on the error object rather than in its message. They are read now, so the screen says what the mailbox actually said.

A client added from the register arrives filled in, the screens that read the register say what they need before you press anything, and the bank feed panels are switched off while open banking waits.

A new client with a company number now arrives filled in from the register rather than nearly empty: the name, the number, the status, the incorporation date, the SIC codes, both filing deadlines, the accounting reference date, the registered office and the board. Only empty fields are filled, so a company you have deliberately recorded under a trading name is not renamed behind your back, and it never stops the client being created. No key, no connection, or a number the register does not recognise, and you get the client exactly as you would have before. The card that shows what the register holds now shows the registered office alongside the rest of it.

The screens that read the register say what they need before you press anything. A lookup takes your own Companies House API key, which is free and takes a couple of minutes to register for, and the screen now tells you that, where to get one and where to put it, rather than explaining itself after a button has failed. Refresh all on the clients list is not drawn at all without a key rather than sitting dead beside controls that work.

The bank feed panels are not shown. The panel on the settings screen and the feed panel on a client's Bank screen are switched off rather than removed, and there is no date for turning them on. Nothing else changes: the routes, the provider library, any stored credentials and the reconciliation are all still there, so if you already had a feed you keep your lines and your matching. Statement import from a file is unaffected, in seven UK layouts.

The sidebar search keeps its two questions apart. Inside a company it searches that company. Another company in your practice still appears, because jumping between them is what the box is for, but under a heading reading Elsewhere in your practice so it is plainly a place to go rather than a result from where you are. Searching across the whole client list from outside a company is unchanged.

If you are coming from a version before 2.9.0, this update also carries everything in that release: the import that refuses rather than writing unreconciled books, the trial balance route, the corporation tax pools carrying forward, the CT600A and CT600C going into the return, and the rest. The product updates page on murgese.co.uk lists it.

The two CT600 supplementary pages most companies need, a payment that can be corrected after the quarter has gone, and report layouts.

This update carries everything from 2.1.0 to 2.9.0. Two things now refuse where they used to carry on, and a corporation tax computation re-run on unchanged books can come out at a different figure, so the first three paragraphs are worth reading before you take it.

An import that does not reconcile refuses, and nothing is written. The comparison between the documents and the control accounts runs before the books are touched rather than after. It names the rows it could not account for, largest first, by number, contact and date. Somebody who knows why the export is short can override it, and the acceptance is recorded on the migration. The same question is put again inside the transaction, so anything lost between reading the file and writing it rolls the whole import back.

A trial balance is now a proper way in rather than a last resort: the opening balances screen reads a spreadsheet, .xlsx, .xlsm or .xls as well as CSV, asks which sheet where a workbook has several, and shows every line with what it matched and how. It also refuses over money in the file that reached no account in your chart. Those lines used to disappear, the totals went out by exactly their amount, and a suspense account was the only thing on offer. They are named now, accepting them is deliberate, and the acceptance goes into the audit entry with the lines themselves. A genuine difference of a few pounds can still go to suspense, where you can see it.

The corporation tax pools brought forward now come from the previous period's own computation, main and special rate separately, and the screen says which period end they came from. The computation also takes the profit or loss on a disposal out and puts the pool adjustment in, which is the only relief the legislation gives for it. Between them these two move the taxable profit, which is why a re-run can differ.

The CT600A and the CT600C go into the return. Every box on both pages carries the element HMRC read it under, and the return declares which supplementary pages are attached. Submission to HMRC is still not available.

A receipt put against the wrong invoice, customer or side of the ledger can be moved after the VAT return has been filed, under Notice 700/45. CIS is still refused. A report can be laid out the way your firm reads it, and a layout cannot alter an amount or make a total disagree with the accounts behind it.

The instructions that travel with an exported office certificate now lead with the safer of the two ways to trust it: pointing another PC's copy of Murgese at the file trusts the office server and nothing else.

Murgese runs on Electron 44, which carries Chromium M152, and inside the operating system's own sandbox. More than six hundred labels are joined to the field they name, for screen readers.