Navigating the App

What this is

Most signed-in screens share a frame: a dark sidebar on the left for moving between sections, a header along the top for the things that change what you are looking at (tax year, client, HMRC status), and the page itself in the middle. Accountants and individuals get the same frame with different labels.

The sidebar

The sidebar lists the sections for your account type. The current page is highlighted. Click the small arrow at the top of the sidebar to collapse it to icons; hover an icon for its name. The collapsed state is remembered.

If you’re filing for yourself

• Home - your dashboard: setup checklist, then your quarters and deadlines
• Quarterly updates - choose a quarter and prepare it from a Summary spreadsheet or eligible saved transactions (the badge shows how many quarters are still to file)
• Transactions, when available - add and check individual income and expense records
• My businesses - the income sources HMRC holds for you
• Past submissions - everything you have filed, with receipts
• Tax estimate - outside the quarterly-update journey this help covers
• Settings - your account, HMRC connection and notifications
• Demo videos - opens the demo videos page on aligned.tax in a new tab, with the videos for people filing for themselves shown first
• Help - opens the aligned.tax help centre in a new tab

If you’re an accountant

The practice sidebar includes:

• Work - every business filing across the practice, one row each, with its deadline countdown, who it is assigned to and the next step. A Today summary counts what is overdue, due this week, blocked or just in; choose a filing to see its details and records request. Press ? on Work for its keyboard shortcuts
• Clients - your client directory, with each client’s status, next deadline and who holds the filing work
• Secure files - request documents or answers and send files through private links
• Forms, when available for your practice - the forms your practice sends to clients, and the answers that come back (see Practice Forms)
• HMRC messages - the feedback HMRC has sent about your clients’ submissions, across every client
• Practice team - who is in the practice and their roles
• Demo videos - opens the demo videos page on aligned.tax in a new tab, with the videos for accountants shown first
• Help - opens the aligned.tax help centre in a new tab

A client’s businesses, obligations, quarterly updates, past submissions and tax estimate are tabs on that client’s page, opened from Work or Clients. On Work, Clients or a client’s page, press Ctrl+K, or Cmd+K on a Mac, to jump to any client or one of their tabs.

Practices with Ask Aligned enabled also see Ask Aligned. It opens a separate practice workspace for asking about practice work; it does not replace the help assistant.

When available for your organisation, Cashbook and Transactions also appear in the practice sidebar. Cashbook contains the professional accounting view. Individuals use Transactions for everyday records; their sidebar does not have a separate Cashbook entry.

Clicking the aligned.tax logo returns you to Work. Settings is in the account menu at the right of the header.

If a taxpayer invited you directly

The sidebar follows the permission that taxpayer granted you. Both View only and Manage my records show Overview, Income and expenses, Tax calculations, Past submissions and Settings. Manage my records also shows Transactions and Cashbook when those features are available. These are the taxpayer’s existing records, with their original evidence and correction history.

The header shows Reviewing with a Read-only adviser badge for View only, or Managing records for with a Records adviser badge for Manage my records. Check the taxpayer name and tax year before working. The aligned.tax logo returns to Overview. Direct adviser access does not expose HMRC connection or quarterly filing controls. Your own Settings remain separate from the taxpayer’s account.

The taxpayer controls your permission. If it changes or is removed, the app checks again while a records page is open and when you return to the window. Each new request also checks the current permission. See Accountant access in Settings.

Page tours

Some pages have a short guided tour that points out the main controls, one at a time. Each tour shows itself the first time you open its page:

• If you’re filing for yourself - your dashboard and Transactions
• If you’re an accountant - Work, Clients and a client’s page

Select Next to move on, or Skip tour (or press Escape) to close it. A tour you finish or skip does not show itself again. To see one again, select Take the tour at the top of Work, Clients or a client’s page, or use the tour links in Settings. If you leave the page part-way through, the tour shows itself again next time.

The first tour for your account type, your dashboard if you file for yourself or Work if you are an accountant, ends on the help assistant button and points you at the Help guides in the menu. The other tours stop at the last control on the page.

Each step scrolls the control it is pointing at into view, so the tour card fades in once it has settled in its place. Wait for it to appear before selecting Next.

On a phone, steps that point at the sidebar point at the menu button instead.

The header

From left to right:

• Tax Year - a dropdown that sets the year every screen shows. It defaults to 2026/27, the first Making Tax Digital for Income Tax year, and never offers an earlier year. Change it before you look at obligations or upload data for another year.
• HMRC status chip (outside direct adviser access) - Not connected, HMRC ready, or HMRC connected for followed by a masked National Insurance number. Click it when something is wrong; it explains what HMRC said.
• Client switcher (accounts with accessible clients) - a button showing the client you are working on. Open it to switch. It is hidden on Work and Clients, where you choose a client from the list or press Ctrl+K.
• Get help - opens a form to send a message to a person at aligned.tax, with the page you were on attached.
• HMRC Feedback bell - opens HMRC Feedback, the messages HMRC has sent about your submissions, with a count of unread ones. It is not a general notification inbox.
• Dark mode switch.
• Account menu - contains Dashboard, Settings and Log Out.

Ava, the help assistant, floats bottom-right in the ordinary app layout. It opens itself once after you sign in (and the first time you use a new account), unless a page tour has run. It does not open itself while you are on the screen that connects you to HMRC, so that screen can show its own progress; you can still open Ava yourself from the button. Once a tour has started, Ava does not open itself for the rest of that browser session, even if you reload the page. Once you close or minimise it, it stays closed for the rest of the session. Ask Aligned uses its own workspace layout and keeps help separate from practice work.

On a phone

At narrow widths the sidebar hides behind a menu button at the top left. Tap it to slide the sidebar in; tap outside it, or press Escape, to close it.

The rest of the app works on a phone too. The dashboard and the quarterly upload stack into a single column at narrow widths:

Things to know

• Two things set the context for every screen: the tax year and, for agents, the client. Check both in the header before uploading or reviewing anything.
• The tax year selector floor is 2026/27. Earlier years cannot be filed through Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, so they are not offered.
• Save transaction edits before changing context. If the transaction editor has unsaved changes, changing client or tax year, navigating away or logging out asks you to keep editing or leave the editor. Choose Keep editing to save first; Leave editor may lose your latest changes.
• Switching client does not change the tax year, and switching tax year does not change the client.
• Sections you cannot see are not for your account type. Client management only appears for agents; the setup wizard only for individuals.
• Demo videos and Help open in a new tab. Both go to the public aligned.tax site, so the page you were working on stays where it was.
• The feedback bar at the bottom (“This is a new service”) can be dismissed with its close button.

FAQ

Can I rearrange the sidebar?

No. It is fixed, in the order of the quarterly filing journey.

Where are settings for an agent account?

In the account menu at the top right, under Settings.

Which tax years can I choose?

The current tax year, the next one, and up to two earlier years, but never earlier than 2026/27. As the years pass the list moves forward; the floor stays.