Self assessment - money earned across end of year

[SophiesMummySaid]

Sorry if the title doesn’t make sense!

If I do some self employment work in March, invoice by end of year but receive the money in the next financial year - which year does it count as income for tax purposes and other purposes eg income calculation for child benefit threshold.

It would be in my favour for it to count in the previous year - when the work was done - can I choose or do I have to wait for the transfer of money and use that date?

Have a read about resource vs cash based accounting - you can do either so long as you are consistent.

Thank you @UnaOfStormhold you have given me the phrase I need to Google!
It seems I can use either for income tax but not for benefits, has to be cash based, but I’ll research further.

If you have to use cash based for benefits, then that's probably the way to go. As a PP says, the important point is to be consistent, both for transparency, but also to avoid confusion.

I also think that cash based is better, because you don't 100% know until you receive the money that you will be paid for that work. If a client goes bust or simply doesn't pay, with resource based, you'd be paying tax on income you hadn't received, although I'm sure you can account for it later, cash just seems simpler to me.