Manage self employed clients that work in the construction industry with specific CIS categories for categorising transactions and populating reports.
- Enabling CIS for a Self Employed Client’s Business
- CIS Categories for Coding Transactions
- Coding CIS Transactions
- Reports
Enabling CIS for a Self Employed Client
New and existing self employed clients can have CIS enabled for their business easily via business settings.
To manage the client’s business settings, in the client account:
- Go to Business settings.
- Then go to the ‘Construction industry scheme (CIS)’ section.
- Set the ‘Enable CIS’ toggle to Yes.
You can disable CIS if desired and CIS deductions will not apply to future transactions, however all previously coded CIS transactions will be preserved.
CIS Categories for Coding Transactions
Once CIS is enabled, new category options will be available in the system. These are designed to reflect CIS-specific income and deduction workflows.
Available CIS Categories:
- Visible by going to Business Settings > Lists > Categories
- Includes multiple CIS Labour categories (e.g., 20%, 30%) under the Turnover tax return box
- These categories allow you to record transactions where tax is deducted at source
- Gross turnover (including CIS suffered) is what appears in the tax return for turnover
- CIS suffered is record separately for reporting the pre paid tax
This means your client’s turnover will reflect what was actually earned, but Solo will also track the CIS suffered element behind the scenes to ensure an accurate tax liability.
Dynamic Calculation: “Less CIS”
When a CIS category is applied:
- ‘Less CIS’ is calculated as a % of the net amount
- Amount Due = Net + Tax – Less CIS
- The system shows a breakdown under the ‘Construction Industry Scheme’ section on the item details page
The calculated Amount Due will match the corresponding payment seen in the Bank space.
Coding CIS Transactions
CIS categories can be applied to items just like any other category via the sales inbox, the item details page or while adding manual line items.
Sales Inbox
To categorise an item via the sales inbox, simply go to the Category column and select the desired category for the relevant transaction.
Item Details
To categorise an item via the item details page, open the item from the inbox, then go to Category on the item details page and select the category.
Line Items
CIS categories can be applied to line items manually. Open the item from the inbox, then scroll down to ‘LINE ITEMS’ and click Create line items.
Add new line items and categorise as needed.
Reports
With your items categorised, you can see an overall summary of all transactions in the Reports section in the sidebar.
The Self Employment Report
- Turnover is shown as a group, with CIS Labour categories expandable beneath it
- Only used categories appear in the report — e.g., if only the 20% CIS Labour category is used, that’s the only one shown
- This dynamic display allows visibility into when a client registered for CIS and helps spot errors (e.g., if an incorrect % was used)
- A separate line displays the total CIS suffered during the selected period
This ensures transparency and accurate tracking for both income and deductions.
The Transaction Summary Report
- Displays gross turnover
- Only CIS Labour categories that were used during the reporting period will appear
- There is no itemised CIS suffered total in the transaction summary
