It’s Awards Season!
As humans we love recognition – it makes us feel good.
February is when those in the entertainment industry enjoy award ceremony after award ceremony to celebrate excellence in their industry, culminating in the Oscars.
Whilst some consider it to be an unnecessary, mutual back-slapping exercise by over-inflated egos, it is widely recognised by the public as the pinnacle of achievement in the film industry.
Winning an Oscar puts you in a place that lots of people don’t even aspire to, let alone get close to.
My favourite film of all time is probably 12 Angry Men (1957) starring Henry Fonda.
A deserved Best Picture Oscar winner, it was subsequently remade in 1997 as a made for TV drama.
The remake was never eligible for an Oscar but, in my opinion, even if it had been, it would never have won.
Why?
Because it is not as good as the original; it is not even close.
The Intelligent Instructor Awards
The Intelligent Instructor Awards do for the driving instruction industry what the Oscars do for the film industry. They recognise excellence!
- Excellence in Instruction
- Excellence in Business
- Excellence in Innovation
- Excellence in Support
We should celebrate all that is good in our industry and, in the same way as the Academy make a song and dance about the Oscars, then so should we.
How does it work?
There are 17 categories in which awards are given and in each category there are gold, silver and bronze awards.
An independent judging panel, consisting of industry experts, evaluate each category and rank the nominees. This makes up 50% of the final scores.
The other 50% is taken from the public vote and the combined scores determine the winners.
The judging panel will consider the nominees on the basis of a written entry, which is prepared by the nominee themselves. They are therefore judging it based on what is presented to them.
The public vote, on the other hand, relies on those who have actually used the nominee or their product to judge it based on their experience.
Being voted top by both the expert judging panel and the public is extremely gratifying.
The judging panel have a breadth of knowledge and visibility across the industry which allows them to bring an overall impression of the entry. Being voted top by them is a real accolade.
The public vote, which is from those who actually use the nominee or their product, represents recognition of its quality and is, for any nominee, the key metric. Being lauded by your users is the best indication of success and is highly prized.
It is the difference between being told that a film is really good and watching it and thinking “Wow, this is really good”.
Why do we want an award?
Being nominated for an Oscar is great, as any of the nominees will tell you, and they’ll probably also say that winning isn’t everything when they don’t win.
But that’s not true. Winning is everything. Winning means you are top of the tree and no-one can ever take that away from you.
Winning won’t make us better at what we do because winning isn’t what motivates us – but it would certainly make us feel good and it will serve as a permanent reminder of our success.
If I won an Oscar, it would be put in a prominent place in my home, not because I want to brag to others about how great I am – although I probably would – but because I want to remind myself when things aren’t going quite so well that actually I am successful and it has been recognised.
I’ve never won a gold award with MyDriveTime – we last won before I joined – so I’m extra motivated this time around.
That said, I don’t believe we should win because I want to, but because we deserve to.
Why do I need to vote for you then?
Our origins lie in driving instruction, our ethos in who we are, our philosophy in what we believe and our excellence in our attention to detail.
MyDriveTime is the manifestation of all that and more. Our support for driving instructors is without parallel.
Last year we won the judges vote but we only ranked 4th in the public vote. We don’t believe that accurately reflects how you feel about MyDriveTime – we just need you to say so.
In our opinion, we are the Professional Support Provider of the Year – and now we need you to help us tell everyone else that we are.
We always appreciate it whenever you sing our praises to other instructors; now we want you to join the choir and sing our praises with everybody else.
The Intelligent Instructor Awards is a great opportunity to do that.
The most prestigious awards, in any industry, are those decided by the voting public – and in the Intelligent Instructor awards, that’s you!
When does voting close and where can I vote?
The closing date for votes is the 23rd February so time is running out.
Your vote can be cast here – please do it now.
…and finally
Every good film has a comprehensive set of credits and MyDriveTime is no exception so…
MyDriveTime – The Search for an Award
A FILM BY
DANIEL HILL
DIRECTED BY
DANIEL HILL
HEAD OF PRODUCTION
MICHELLE TIMMONS
PRODUCTION DESIGNERS
CHRIS NICHOLSON
PHIL MOORE
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
DANIEL HILL
JO HILL
MICHELLE TIMMONS
WRITTEN BY
EMMA ASHLEY
BASED ON AN ORIGINAL IDEA BY
DANIEL AND JO HILL
CATERING PROVIDED BY
MICHELLE’S CUPCAKES
SPECIAL THANKS
EVELYN EASTGATE for being an inspiration every day
No animals were harmed during the making of this product
If you find any issues with this blog or anything else, please contact us at support@mydrivetime.co.uk.
Panic – or – Calm?
If I said to you that the government were going to make everyone take a test every 10 years in order to retain their driving licence, what would be your reaction? Laugh 
, cry 
, panic 
, swear 
, be bored 
, see an opportunity 🤑, or something else maybe?
Making Tax Digital, which HMRC is now talking about in earnest having been in the pipeline for a number of years, likewise causes most, if not all, of these emotions.
And as is always the case when something new and significant approaches, a few people immediately saw an opportunity to take advantage.
Adverts started appearing across the press, adverts which, rather than seeking to allay our fears, are specifically designed to make us panic about Making Tax Digital and make us nervous about how it is going to make our lives more complicated… unless we start using their software, app, service or dodgy accountancy firm.
Hopefully, I’m going to put your mind at rest.
Being confronted with a new requirement such as Making Tax Digital can be overwhelming and scary, but rather than be overwhelmed or scared, I decided not to panic but to ignore the doomsayers and seek help instead.
So I attended a presentation by Dan Hill, business owner and CEO of MyDriveTime, the original business management solution on the requirements of Making Tax Digital and how MyDriveTime is going to interface to it.
How does it work now?
Being self-employed, we have to pay tax. 😠 And it is our responsibility rather than our employer’s!
Historically that has always been via a tax return, once a year, and the government believe that if I’m clever enough to run my own business I must be clever enough to work out how much tax I owe them.
Now, like New Year’s resolutions, I have the best intentions at the beginning of the new tax year, aiming to complete my tax return by the end of April and be totally on top of my tax affairs right from the start.
In reality, I’m never that diligent and that means that I’m too often rushing to complete tax returns by the deadline.
How is it going to work in future?
Under the new system, we will have to submit electronic records every quarter to HMRC declaring our income and expenditure for that quarter.
These are not a replacement for our annual tax return.
We’ll still have to do that but these quarterly updates will divide the required work into smaller chunks each with their own deadline.
This makes our tax liabilities clearer and makes our tax return easier to complete. It also helps HMRC to keep more informed about their likely tax receipts.
HMRC have already identified deadlines for each of the quarterly updates so it will be very clear what we have to do and when we have to do it by.
What about in practice?
“So I can just download my accounts from MyDriveTime to an Excel spreadsheet as I do at the moment and send that to HMRC every 3 months? That’s a doddle.”
Well it would be if we could do that but we can’t. HMRC will not accept quarterly updates in any old format – instead they have partnered with a number of suppliers e.g., Xero, who provide an interface to HMRC’s systems and we must use one of them.
“But that means I have to put the information in MyDriveTime and also in some other bit of software that I have to learn? That’s a right pain!”
Yes, it certainly would be BUT not if MyDriveTime does that bit for us. After all if we already put our information into MyDriveTime, we don’t really want to do anything other than ‘push the button’ to send it all to HMRC, via the partner, in the correct format.
Furthermore, MyDriveTime won’t let you ‘forget’ to do the submission and it will remind you in good time that the deadline is approaching.
It is likely that we will have to set up the interface to submit the return but we’ll only have to do this once, prior to the first submission, and MyDriveTime will help us to do that.
I don’t use MyDriveTime for recording my business finances
If you are using MyDriveTime’s business management app to control your diary, students and lessons but not using the money section, you are missing out and making things more difficult than they need to be.
“But can I really trust MyDriveTime’s figures?” Absolutely! Instructors and accountants have been using and trusting MyDriveTime’s money section for years and we’re not going to drop the ball now.
If you don’t use MyDriveTime’s money section, Making Tax Digital is going to make it even more difficult. Whether you have your own accounts package, spreadsheet, knowledgeable friend or a file full of pieces of paper, the requirements of Making Tax Digital are going to be the same for you as everyone else.
You are going to have to prepare the figures in the right format and then find an HMRC partner to submit them for you.
Furthermore, the responsibility for getting the updates in on time will lie firmly with you.
When does it start?
The government love moving the goalposts when it suits them and HMRC are no exception; things may change.
However, at this moment, Making Tax Digital will be necessary from the beginning of the 2026 tax year i.e., 6th April 2026 if your qualifying income, that is gross income from self-employment and property exceeds £50,000.
If your gross income is higher than £30,000 then the start date is April 2027 and if its more than £20,000 then the start date is April 2028.
I’m new to all this…
If you have never done a self-assessment tax return, because you are just starting out in business, HMRC cannot know whether you qualify for Making Tax Digital.
Therefore you will have to register for self-assessment and file your first tax return in the normal way following the normal deadlines. This applies even if you don’t think that you are or will be subject to the qualifying income specified above.
HMRC will then work out what needs to happen and let you know.
In the meantime, using MyDriveTime to record your income and expenditure means that you’ll be ready whatever HMRC say.
So what’s next?
For the moment, if you already record your income and expenditure in MyDriveTime, you don’t need to do anything differently, whatever anyone else is telling you and if you qualify for Making Tax Digital in the 2026/2027 financial year, HMRC will let you know.
MyDriveTime is working on a range of self-service and partnership options which will be available to help you by the time your first quarterly submission is due in July. So you can choose how you manage things.
As things develop, we will let everyone know. If you have any questions, reach out.
It wouldn’t be good business software if we just left you to your own devices at the time you need us most – and MyDriveTime is excellent business software!
Of course, if you don’t currently enter your income and expenses in MyDriveTime, you need to consider very carefully what you are going to do when HMRC start asking for quarterly updates…
…and finally
As always, we believe in doing things properly so we will make sure that we provide the best solutions and we will let you know in good time how these are going to work in practice. That way you will be able to familiarise yourself with the most appropriate solution for you before it becomes a legal requirement and as usual we will be here to help you make this transition.
If you find any issues with this blog or anything else, please contact us at support@mydrivetime.co.uk.
Feature Enhancement
We have added an enquiry form to the Enquiry Management System which allows you to take enquiries online directly into MyDriveTime. We have provided a web page which you can enable and publish wherever you wish and also provided the ability to embed our web enquiry form on your website.
Setting up for Online Enquiries
You can access the online enquiry setup by going to Team>Settings>Web Enquiries. The first thing you will need to do is to enable Web Enquiries so click the Enable button and you will see something like this.
The first option is a web form, hosted by MyDriveTime, which you can provide as a clickable link wherever suits you and your business.
The second option is essentially the same form but it can be embedded as a form in your website. The code simply needs to be copied into the right place in your web code.
Let’s have a look at the form – by clicking View in the Hosted Form section.
What information do I get from the form?
The enquirer, who can be the student or someone enquiring on behalf of the student, can enter a whole host of information which is then stored in our app. Which options you get depend on which options you choose. Information is either recorded as part of the enquiry e.g., required start date, or is included within the student notes e.g., gift status and student availability.
…and finally
This feature enhancement is provided as a gateway into the Enquiry Management System and is just another step on an exciting road. We hope you are enjoying the journey thus far and are excited to see what’s coming next…
Although, at the moment, this feature is only available for teams as is the Enquiry Management System, it will be made available to independent instructors in the fullness of time.
As always, if you find any issues with this blog or anything else, please contact us at support@mydrivetime.co.uk.