The self-employed setting in Dext lets you manage sole proprietor and unincorporated business clients who don't use accounting software. When enabled, it pre-loads a tax-appropriate category list and adds a Tax summary export to the client's Costs and Sales workspaces.
Important: This feature is unrelated to Dext Solo. Dext Solo is a separate product for UK self-assessment. This setting is only available for practices registered in the US or Canada.
Enable the self-employed setting
You can enable the self-employed setting when creating a new client or on an existing client account.
When adding a new client
From your Clients list, select Add client.
Select the products to enable for the client, then select Continue.
On the integration step, select Without integration and select Continue.
Enter the Client name. Turn on the Self-employed toggle.
Select an Industry if applicable, then select Continue to complete the setup.
On an existing client account
The self-employed setting can be enabled on existing client accounts registered in the US or Canada that are not connected to accounting software.
Go to the client's account.
Select Business settings in the bottom-left navigation.
Select Business profile.
Under the Business profile section, turn on the Self-employed toggle.
Categories
When the self-employed setting is enabled, Dext pre-loads a default category list matched to the relevant tax form for that client's country.
US clients - the default list reflects Schedule C deduction categories for sole proprietors and unincorporated businesses.
Canadian clients - the default list reflects T2125 categories for business and professional income.
You can edit, hide, or replace these categories at any time. For step-by-step instructions, see How to manage categories in Dext.
Tax summary
The Tax summary is the key feature of the self-employed setting. It generates a CSV export of all costs or sales items in a selected date range, summarised by category - giving you a breakdown of expenses, tax, and net amounts ready for tax return preparation.
The Tax summary button appears in the action bar of the Costs and Sales inboxes and archives.
Download a tax summary
Go to Costs or Sales in the client's account.
Select Tax summary in the action bar at the top of the page.
Set the Date range for the summary.
Select the Source - Inbox, Archive, or Inbox & Archive.
Select Download.
The file downloads as a CSV. Each row shows the receipt code, date, supplier, description, and total for an item. The summary includes totals for expenses, tax amount, and net amount.
Note: To include bank transactions in a tax summary, they need to have a matching item in the inbox. Unmatched transactions can be cash-coded to create a corresponding inbox item.
Everything else
Outside of the category list and tax summary, self-employed accounts work like any other unintegrated Dext account. For guidance on setting up lists, bank accounts, and extraction settings, see Setting up Dext without accounting software.