When is income from self employment taxed?

[Laggartha]

I can't get any clarity on this. I completed some consultancy in March but only got paid for this work in April. Do I include it in my 2020/21 self assessment or 2021/22?

Whenever you invoiced.

20/21 assuming you issued an invoice. Even if you just did the work and didn't invoice it would be accrued income in 20/21

Fantastic, thank you, I did invoice.

Actually it depends how you choose to fill in your return. If self-employed you can choose whether to use cash-basis accounting (there may be restrictions on total turnover for this, I don't know as nowhere near myself!), or traditional accounting.

If traditional, then you account for everything when it is invoiced, both income and expenses too I think. If cash basis then income is counted when you actually receive it, and expenses when you pay them. It is possible to change between systems but if you do there will be corrections to apply. I'm in the process of tidying up my records with a view to changing to traditional accounting (for various reasons).

So, if you have regular self-employment then stick to whatever system you've previously used. If this is a one-off, you may be able to choose which year to include it. If including it in this tax year may put you over a tax threshold for example, you may be best including it last year.

I am self-employed and use cash accounting. Any payment goes into the month that payment was received, rather than the month in which an invoice was issued.

For my situation, as a freelancer not buying stock and incurring other business expensive, it keeps things much neater. My year runs 1 April - 31 March. If I did £2k worth of work in March, invoiced at the end of the month but not paid until April, it goes in the following tax year.