Cuéntamo manual › Freelancers › Self-employed — Tax forecast

Self-employed — Tax forecast

Your periodic tax returns, the filing calendar, the annual income-tax summary and depreciation tracking, all estimated from your movements

Who it's for

For self-employed people on Simplified Direct Estimation who are tired of keeping tax accounting in a spreadsheet separate from their personal finances and then cross-referencing everything by hand each quarter. The idea is simple: in the same Cuéntamo where you track your salary, mortgage and gym membership, you also track your issued and received invoices, VAT, PIT and tax books.

What you'll be able to do

  • Mark each movement as personal or freelance, and have Cuéntamo separate them in all calculations.
  • Assign VAT type (21%, 10%, 4%, exempt or custom) and PIT withholding to each business expense and income.
  • Instantly see your estimated quarterly settlement (IVA form 303 and PIT form 130) without having to add anything up.
  • Keep the 4 tax books required by the Tax Agency (income, expenses, capital goods, provisions) updated automatically.
  • Maintain a directory of clients and suppliers with tax IDs so you don't have to type them every time.
  • Mark expenses as depreciable (a computer, a camera, a car) and have Cuéntamo apply the correct quarterly depreciation.
  • Adjust the deductibility of each expense: partial business use (a car or home office at 50%) and deductible VAT according to your tax's rules, with profiles by tag or category, or invoice by invoice. Forms 130 and 303 respect those percentages.
  • Manage deferred payments: a single invoice can have several instalments; Cuéntamo helps you link them to their tax document and tracks payment status automatically.
  • Have tax payments as forecast movements in your account, so the balance forecast accounts for them months in advance.
  • Export the books to Excel when your accountant asks for them.

Activating it

Go to Settings → Account book and activate the freelance module. As soon as you do, three new entries appear in the sidebar:

  • Tax forecast — the estimated quarterly settlement.
  • Tax books — the 4 books with their tables and export.
  • Third parties — the client and supplier directory.

And a new tab in Settings: Freelance, where you set the account for tax payments and whether you work under the equivalence surcharge regime.

Only the book owner can activate it. Requires Cuéntamo Más, except during the 14-day free trial of the module.

Your tax regime (common and regional territories)

When you enable the module, a small wizard asks for your country and regime. In Spain, besides the common territory (most freelancers: VAT + income tax with form 130), Cuéntamo supports the regional (foral) regimes: Navarre and the three Basque territories (Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa and Araba/Álava).

The regime is not cosmetic: it changes the taxes that apply, the forms and their filing dates, the income-tax boxes and the depreciation tables. For example, Navarre's payment on account scales in brackets (6/12/18/24 %) by your net profit, and in Álava and Bizkaia it is assessed ex officio by the Provincial Council. Cuéntamo handles all of that automatically once you pick your regime.

In Settings → Freelance you can adjust your regime (rates, fiscal year, depreciation terms) or restore the official configuration whenever you want.

Equivalence surcharge

If you are a retailer under the equivalence surcharge scheme, enable it in Settings → Freelance. With the surcharge, your supplier charges you an extra VAT percentage and, in exchange, you don't file periodic VAT returns (neither form 303 nor the annual summary).

Cuéntamo reflects this: in the quarterly settlements the VAT columns disappear and the VAT payments are removed from the calendar. The surcharge you pay to suppliers is just another expense of your activity. It's not a separate regime: it's a capability you switch on over your regime (available in the common territory and in the regional regimes that provide for it).

Deductibility profiles

Not every expense is 100% deductible. So you don't have to repeat the percentages expense by expense, you define deductibility profiles in Settings → Freelance → "Deductibility profiles". Each profile is two percentages:

  • Business use: how much of the expense belongs to your activity and is therefore deductible for income tax. A car or a home office used 50% for work deducts half.
  • Deductible VAT: how much of the input VAT you can reclaim on form 303.

A profile can be assigned to a category or a tag (including the global categories Cuéntamo ships by default). When an expense has both, the tag profile wins over the category one.

Two examples you set up once and forget:

  • Mixed-use car → 50% business use and 50% VAT (article 95 of the VAT Act for mixed-use vehicles).
  • Client entertainment (invitations, gifts) → 0% VAT: that VAT isn't reclaimable, but it becomes a larger income-tax expense instead.

The priority order is: tag → category → default 100%. And above all, you can always override it invoice by invoice from the "Deductibility" block of the tax document (see Tax books): the document override wins over the tag or category profile.

The key concept: scope

Every movement and every recurring item has a scope: personal or freelance. Your home mortgage = personal. Client invoices = freelance. Social Security contribution as self-employed = freelance. The weekly supermarket shop = personal.

Cuéntamo separates the two scopes in all calculations: your personal forecast keeps working as always, and at the same time you have complete tax accounting for freelance movements, without them mixing.

There are mixed cases: car insurance used both personally and professionally. In those cases you create two movements (or two recurring items) for the corresponding percentage of each scope.

Typical workflow

  1. Activate the module and set the account where tax payments go (the current account you use for your business).
  2. Create the fixed recurring items for freelance: monthly Social Security contribution, accountant's fee, coworking rent, professional software subscriptions… all with freelance scope and the corresponding VAT type.
  3. Every time you issue an invoice to a client, log the income (or set it as recurring if it's a regular client), mark scope as freelance, pick the client from the third party directory (if listed) and fill in the invoice number.
  4. Every time you receive a supplier invoice, log the expense the same way. Cuéntamo creates the tax records automatically.
  5. Before the quarter ends, open Tax forecast and check the estimated summary.
  6. Tap "Sync tax payments" and the amounts due appear as forecast movements in your account for their respective dates (20 Apr, 20 Jul, 20 Oct, 30 Jan).
  7. When the filing deadline arrives, export the tax books to Excel and send them to your accountant or use them yourself.

What's still your accountant's job

Cuéntamo is a management tool, not a tax service. The figures you see are estimates and the exported books are indicative. If you file tax forms, you still need a tax adviser or, at the very least, to validate the numbers yourself before submitting. Cuéntamo saves you the manual work; it doesn't exempt you from reviewing.

The Tax forecast screen is the fiscal dashboard of the self-employed module. From your movements and from the data in your record books, Cuéntamo estimates how much you will have to declare each period, when those returns are due, how your annual income-tax summary looks and how the depreciation of the assets you bought for your business is progressing. It is a look ahead at your tax life, so nothing catches you by surprise.

Everything here is an indicative estimate, computed from the data you keep in the app. It does not replace your accountant: it is there to keep the figures at hand, plan your cash flow and spot in good time whatever is still unclassified. Cuéntamo repeats this in several notices at the foot of each block.

One important point: Cuéntamo has a tax engine that is configurable per regime. The terminology you will see on this screen —the name of the indirect tax (VAT, IGIC…), the name of the direct tax (income tax and its instalment payment, or another), the declaration forms, the frequency (monthly, quarterly…) and even the word «depreciation» or «amortization»— comes from your book's active regime. In this chapter we use the terms common in Spain, but remember they adapt to your setup.

What you need to see this screen

The Tax forecast is part of the self-employed module, which is a Cuéntamo Más feature. If you have neither a subscription nor an active self-employed trial, on entering you will see a window explaining the feature and offering to start the free trial. With access, the screen opens with its tabs.

Within the module there are two «levels» that depend on how the book is set up in Settings:

  • Tax calculation turned on (so the returns and the calendar are generated).
  • The full self-employed module, which additionally enables depreciation tracking.

Depending on what you have active and on your regime, you will see one or more tabs at the top: Quarterly returns (or «Monthly», or whatever matches your frequency) and Pending depreciation. If only one tab is available, the tab bar does not even show.

The periodic returns table

This is the heart of the first tab. A table with one row per period (the four quarters, the twelve months… depending on your regime) and these columns:

  • Income and Expenses: what you invoiced and what you spent in the period.
  • Net: income minus expenses. Green if positive, red if negative.
  • Output VAT, Input VAT and VAT to settle: these appear only if your regime has an indirect tax. The «to settle» figure shows a + sign in red when you owe it, or green when it comes out as a refund or credit.
  • Income tax est. (or the name of your direct tax): the estimate of the period's instalment payment.

Periods with no data appear dimmed with dashes. At the bottom, a totals row (the year's «Total») sums each column. And below it, always, the notice that these are estimates.

On narrow screens the table turns itself into a list of cards, one per period, with the same expandable information.

View by taxable base or tax included

At the top right of the table there is a «VAT incl.» checkbox (with the name of your indirect tax). By default the Income and Expenses amounts are shown at their taxable base (without the tax). Ticking the box switches them to tax included (the total). It is the same switch applied by the rate breakdown and the box detail, so everything stays consistent however you look at it.

Choosing the tax year and syncing payments

Next to the checkbox above you have:

  • A Tax year selector with last year, the current year and next year. Never further out: the forecast looks at the recent past and the immediate future.
  • A «Sync tax payments» button. It creates or updates in your movements list the forecast entries for the taxes (the VAT and income tax to pay), so the balance forecast takes them into account. It is a manual action: Cuéntamo does not touch your movements until you press it.

Breakdown by VAT rate

Each table row can be expanded (by clicking it or its little arrow ). Below appears the breakdown by VAT rate: one sub-row per rate applied in the period (for example 21 %, 10 %, or «Exempt»), with the income and expense amounts at that rate.

This breakdown splits each document by its actual rate, so an invoice with several VAT rates is spread across the relevant sub-rows. It also respects the base / tax-included switch.

In the expenses column, when a rate includes the purchase of a depreciable asset, a small note appears («without depreciation: …») with the period's expense excluding that purchase. It is a reminder that an asset is not deducted all at once, but gradually over its useful life.

The box detail

Inside an expanded row, the Income, Expenses, Output VAT and Input VAT figures (when they have an amount) are clickable. Clicking them opens a window with the detail of that box: the list of documents that make it up, with their concept, the third party, the date, the base, the VAT and the total. At the foot, the box total.

It is how you answer «where does this number come from?»: it takes you straight to the movements adding up in that box and that quarter. If a document was depreciated in the period, the row shows how much was deducted that quarter.

The «Depreciation for the period» row

When a period has carried-over depreciation from assets bought in earlier years, the expanded row shows an extra line «Depreciation for the period», also clickable. It opens the detail of which assets contribute that amount and how much each one accrues.

That carried-over amount is an exempt expense (no VAT): the asset's input VAT was already fully deducted in the quarter of purchase, so in later years only the proportional share of the cost is deducted, without tax. The depreciation of the purchase quarter itself, by contrast, is shown inside the detail of the expenses box.

Notices that may appear above the table

Above the table, depending on your situation and your regime, Cuéntamo shows contextual notices:

  • Net income from prior years. In regimes whose instalment payment is computed by brackets of the net income of past years (typical of the Spanish provincial regimes), a panel appears to declare that data by hand if it is not yet in the app: the net income of the two prior years, withholdings, the percentage of income subject to withholding and the operating volume, plus your activity start date and the activity type (business, professional, agricultural). It fine-tunes the calculation; leave a year blank so Cuéntamo computes it from your own movements once it has them.
  • Instalment-payment exemption. If more than 70 % of last year's income was subject to withholding, a notice reminds you that you are not required to file the instalment payment (in Spain, form 130), although you may file it anyway if you prefer to pay tax in advance.
  • Free depreciation of low-value assets. If you have fully depreciated low-value assets above the annual cap, a notice warns that the excess should be depreciated by the table rather than all at once.

The calendar of returns to file

Below the table, the calendar lists the returns due in the tax year, ordered by their due date. Each entry brings:

  • The due date, on a calendar «pill». Past ones are dimmed and marked «overdue»; today's is highlighted.
  • A label with the type of return (the direct tax, the indirect one, a refund, withholdings on professionals or on rent, intra-community operations, the annual income-tax return…).
  • The corresponding form (130, 303, 111, 115, 349, 100… in Spain), and an «Informative» mark if the return carries no payment.
  • The amount: red with «−» if you must pay, green with «+» if it comes out as a refund, the base if it is informative, or the word «Reminder» when it is just a heads-up with no figure.

If there are capital goods above the legal threshold, a notice at the foot flags it (they go in their own boxes and involve a multi-year adjustment). And, as always, the note that the dates are standard estimates. On narrow screens the calendar also switches to a card layout.

The detail of each return

Clicking a calendar entry opens its detail, with the breakdown proper to that form taken from the period's already-computed data:

  • VAT return (303 in Spain): output, input and VAT to settle, plus the breakdown by rate and, where relevant, the capital-goods notice.
  • Instalment payment (130): income base, expense base, net income, withholdings borne and the estimated payment.
  • Withholdings on professionals (111) and on rent (115): the amount to pay, with a note pointing to the per-third-party detail in the expenses book.
  • Intra-community operations (349): the base, plus the detail of operations with third parties from other EU countries (check that their VAT number and country are correct).
  • Annual income-tax return (100): a reminder that the return depends on your personal circumstances and is not estimated here, together with the Annual income-tax summary as a starting point (covered next).

The annual income-tax summary

The annual income-tax summary groups your documents for the tax year by income-tax box (direct-estimate method), so you can transfer them to your income-tax return. It is shown inside the detail of the income-tax return (form 100) from the calendar, referring to the tax year that return covers (the year before its deadline).

It is organised into two blocks:

  • Gross income: one row per income box, with its code, its label, the number of documents and the base. Overall total at the top, in green.
  • Tax-deductible expenses: the same for expense boxes, with the total in red.

Below, the Net income (income minus expenses). Whatever you have not yet classified is grouped into an «Unclassified» row, so you can see at a glance what is left to box up from the record books.

Clicking any row opens the detail: the documents included in that box, with their concept, invoice number, the third party (name and tax ID) and the base (showing the amount with tax when it carries any). Bases are always computed without VAT.

The summary counts only what has already accrued: documents with a future accrual date do not enter until their time comes, even if they are recorded as forecast.

The bracket monitor

In regimes whose fee goes by brackets according to accumulated income (typical of flat-fee-by-category schemes), below the calendar a bracket monitor appears. It shows your current category, the monthly fee it carries, your accumulated income for the year and a progress bar towards the bracket's limit.

If you approach the limit, it warns in amber; if you have exceeded it, in red, reminding you that you need to move category. When it points to a next bracket, it tells you how much is left to reach it and what fee it would carry. This block only shows if your regime works this way.

Pending depreciation

The second tab (available with the full self-employed module and in regimes with depreciation) lists the assets that still have an amount left to deduct. Each asset comes from an expense movement you marked as depreciable in its editor. For each one you see:

  • The concept, with a «free depreciation» tag if it was fully deducted in the year of purchase.
  • The purchase date and the annual depreciation rate (with the amount per year).
  • The asset's base (without VAT) on the right.
  • A progress bar with the percentage already depreciated, and below it the accumulated, the pending and the estimated end date.

If there are no depreciable assets yet, the tab shows a tip inviting you to mark an equipment expense as depreciable and to state its annual rate, so Cuéntamo keeps track here.

An asset’s depreciation schedule

Clicking an asset in the list opens its depreciation schedule: the tax years over which it is deducted as an expense. One row per year, with what is deductible that year, the accumulated and the pending, and a status tag: deducted (past years), in progress (the current year) or pending (future).

Each year can be expanded into its quarters (the current year comes open by default), to see the quarterly split of the amount. In the year of purchase, depreciation is prorated from the quarter in which you bought the asset. If the asset is under free depreciation, you will see a single year with 100 % of the amount.

Remember: these are estimates

We stress it because it matters: every figure on this screen is indicative. Cuéntamo computes what it can from your movements and from the deductibility you have stated, but it does not know your full prior withholdings, your personal circumstances or the particulars of your case. The direct-tax estimate does not include optional reductions: that is on purpose, so the payment always errs on the safe side. Use this screen to plan and to never turn up empty-handed to your accountant, not to file without reviewing.

How it fits with the rest of the module

The Tax forecast is the «output» view: the figures and the due dates. It draws on your record books (where you classify each document into its box and adjust its deductibility), on the third-party directory (clients and suppliers with tax IDs) and on your real and forecast movements, including recurring ones. When you press «Sync tax payments», it feeds the result back into your balance forecast as forecast payments. And the regime and module settings live in Settings.

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