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The Sole trader current accounts template tracks the movements through a sole trader's current account during the year: the year's profit or loss, drawings, private use adjustments, pension and tax payments, and any transfers to or from the capital account. It reconciles the resulting closing balance back to the trial balance. The template only appears for entities whose legal form is set to sole trader, and it shares its underlying logic with the equivalent Partner current accounts working paper, simplified because a sole trader has only one owner rather than a list of partners to split profit between.

Table of contents 

When should I use this template?

Use it for any sole trader working-paper file to build up and reconcile the current account: the account that absorbs the year's trading profit or loss together with drawings and other personal adjustments. It is not used for partnerships, which use the equivalent Partner current accounts template (built on the same logic, but with a partner list and a profit-split step). It is also not used for companies or LLPs, which do not have current accounts in this sense.

The template is auto-hidden unless the client's legal form is set to "sole trader", either at company level or on the [Unincorporated] General settings template.

Before you start

  • Add the unincorporated Working Papers workflow and confirm the legal form is set to "sole trader" on [Unincorporated] General settings.
  • Complete the [Unincorporated] Profit and loss account reconciliation first. This template pulls the current year's profit or loss figure from there to include as a movement and to reconcile against.
  • Decide, before entering data, whether you want to work from account-level detail or from trial balance totals directly. See Step 1 below, since the choice also governs the Sole trader capital accounts template.
  • If the client operates in the medical or agricultural sector, set the industry on [Unincorporated] General settings first, as it changes some of the category names and combines several categories into one (see Step 2).

Background: how a sole trader's current account works

Unlike a partnership, a sole trader has no one to share profit with, so there is no salary, interest on capital, or profit-split calculation to complete. The whole of the year's profit or loss simply passes through the current account.

What the current account still needs to capture is everything else that moves through it during the year: the profit or loss itself, funds the owner introduces personally, drawings taken out, any private use adjustments, and personal costs such as pension contributions, national insurance and tax paid from the business.

A separate account, the capital account, covered by the Sole trader capital accounts template, normally only moves for capital introduced, capital repaid, and transfers between the two accounts, so it is kept apart from the day-to-day current account activity handled here.

Step 1: Choose how the figures are built up

At the top of the template is a dropdown: "Select workflow option", with two options (a third, "Old version", only appears if it has been specifically enabled for a client still transitioning from the legacy workflow, and is not compatible with the Annual Accounts workflow):

  • Accounts analysis: figures for each category are built up from individual trial balance accounts that have been tagged, one transaction at a time, using the "Partner or Sole trader current & capital account allocation" account template. This is the more granular option: each category's total on this working paper links back to every account template used to produce it.
  • Mapped: figures are picked up directly from fixed trial balance account ranges, without needing to tag anything at account level. This is the quicker option where the trial balance already follows the expected account structure.

A hover info-text on the dropdown notes that whichever option you choose here is also applied on the Sole trader capital accounts template. The two templates share a single setting, so you only choose once. If the client's accounts include an accounts-production note for the current account, an info-text also confirms that the same figures shown here are reflected in that note.

Step 2: Review the categories

Once a workflow option is selected, the template lists one row per category, in this order: opening balance, profit or loss for the year, funds introduced, drawings, private use items, life assurance, health insurance, pension contributions, retirement annuity contributions, national insurance contributions, tax, and transfers to or from the capital account, the land and property capital account, and the additional capital account. A category row is only displayed if it carries a non-zero value for the year (opening balance and the profit/loss row always show).

If the client's industry is set to "medical" on [Unincorporated] General settings, the salary, interest on capital, pension and profit rows are combined into a single "Share of net medical income" category, and "Pension contributions" is relabelled "Superannuation contributions" throughout.

  • In Accounts analysis mode, each row's value is a read-only total pulled from every account tagged with that category on the account template, and an info-text above the table links to every trial balance account contributing to the total.
  • In Mapped mode, each row's value is pulled directly from its fixed account range instead, and nothing needs to be tagged at account level. For the "Transfer to/from" rows only, a text box lets you overwrite the row's description (for example, to name the specific account it relates to) without affecting the figures.

Step 3: Review the reconciliation

The template totals every category into a closing balance and compares it against the current account's trial balance value (net of any salary, interest on capital and profit-and-loss postings already picked up elsewhere, so they are not counted twice). If there is a difference, an unreconciled indicator appears showing the current accounts trial balance value, the year's profit or loss, the calculated total closing balance, and the resulting difference. Use this breakdown to find what has not been captured in one of the categories above.

A separate unreconciled indicator can also appear against a "Transfer between partners" line, with the message "The total value of this account should be nil". For a sole trader this category should never carry a balance, since there is no other party to transfer to, so a value here almost always points to a miscoded transaction.

What flows through to the rest of the accounts / workflow?

  • The closing balance calculated here is what the client's balance sheet reports as the current account balance for the sole trader.
  • If the client's file includes the accounts-production current account note, the same category breakdown and closing balance are shown there for disclosure, alongside a year-on-year comparative table.
  • The workflow option chosen here (Accounts analysis or Mapped) also controls how the Sole trader capital accounts template sources its figures, since the two templates share one setting.
  • In Accounts analysis mode, the categories are populated by whichever accounts have been tagged using the "Partner or Sole trader current & capital account allocation" account template. That template's article explains how the tagging itself is entered.

What rolls forward next year?

  • The closing balance for each category becomes next year's comparative ("last year") figure in the accounts-production note, where applicable.
  • Any manually typed descriptions for the transfer rows (Mapped mode) are not required to be re-entered. They roll forward as part of the reconciliation.
  • The workflow option chosen (Accounts analysis or Mapped) is not automatically reassessed each year. It stays as configured until changed.

Where the data comes from

  • Trial balance: current account movements are picked up either from tagged individual accounts (Accounts analysis mode) or from fixed account ranges (Mapped mode), depending on the workflow option selected.
  • [Unincorporated] Profit and loss account reconciliation: supplies the current year's profit or loss figure used both as a movement in the table and in the reconciliation check.
  • [Unincorporated] General settings reconciliation: supplies the legal form (to confirm the template should be shown) and the industry setting (to adjust category names and groupings for medical clients).
  • Partner or Sole trader current & capital account allocation account template: in Accounts analysis mode, supplies the tagged totals behind each category.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I see an "Old version" option in the workflow dropdown?

It is hidden by default and only appears where it has been specifically kept available for a client still transitioning off the legacy sole trader workflow. It is not compatible with the Annual Accounts workflow, so new files should use Accounts analysis or Mapped instead.

I changed the workflow option here but it also changed on the capital accounts template. Is that right?

Yes. The two templates share a single workflow-option setting, so changing it on either one changes it on both.

Why is a category missing from the table?

Categories with a nil value for the year are hidden automatically to keep the table short, apart from the opening balance and profit/loss rows, which always show.

Why does the template say "The total value of this account should be nil"?

That warning is against the "Transfer between partners" category. A sole trader has no partners, so this category should never carry a value. Check whether a transaction has been tagged incorrectly.

Why are Salary and Interest on capital not shown for a sole trader?

Those categories only apply to partnerships, where salary and interest on capital are appropriated to individual partners before the residual profit is split. A sole trader has no one to appropriate a salary or interest to, so the whole profit or loss passes through as a single line.