Our Story
From a carrier bag in the van to a simple tool — the TidGo story
31 January, 9pm. Sound familiar?
You know the drill. The bag comes out. Receipts everywhere — dashboard, pockets, jacket you wore in November, that one from the builders' merchant you definitely need but can't read anymore because thermal paper has the lifespan of... hmm... an open beer?
You sit there with a beer, hoping you'll file before midnight. Your partner gives you the look. Same look, every year.
That was me. For years.
Who's behind this
Polish immigrant. Arrived in the UK 25 years ago without a word of English — well, I knew "f**k you", but that didn't help much in job interviews. Started on building sites, worked on CIS, spent years as a tradesman before moving behind the wheel — van, HGV, and at some point a forkie on site.
You know how it is with the forkie. The machine appears when someone needs it, disappears the moment someone else does. Busy all day, queue of brickies complaining the blocks aren't there. Not saying I never accepted a little "incentive" to prioritise certain deliveries. Site economics. The brickies understood.
The receipts though. Always a nightmare. Carrier bag, glove box, random pockets. Every January, same story.
Earlier this year the doctor grounded me. No more machinery, no more HGV. So instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I figured I'd learn to code. And while I was at it, I got deep into Making Tax Digital — because that's what people like me need to understand right now.
Why I didn't just use the big accounting software
I went through them all. Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent. Genuinely good tools. Built for accountants. Not for someone who's just come off a ten-hour shift and wants to deal with a receipt before they forget what it was for.
And then there's the language thing. Tax is hard enough in your own language. In a second one, it's a wall. That's why TidGo works in eight languages — while everything your accountant sees is in English. Nobody has to translate anything.
What TidGo doesn't do — and why I say it out loud
TidGo does not submit anything to HMRC. It doesn't replace your accountant. It does one job: keeps your digital records clean and ready before they reach the people who need them.
I say this because I've seen too many adverts that promise everything and then the person behind them is afraid to answer the phone. I'd rather tell you where the line is upfront.
Built for us. By one of us.
No big team. No investors from Silicon Valley or the City of London.
Just me — someone who's driven the same roads, worked the same sites, queued at the same builders' merchants and spent too many January evenings on the floor with a carrier bag wondering why nobody had built something simpler.
I know what a ten-hour shift feels like. I know what it's like to get a CIS payslip by email and have no idea where to put it. I know what it's like to do business in your second language and hit a wall every time someone mentions "reconciliation" or "accruals".
TidGo was built from that. Not from a gap in the market spotted in a spreadsheet. From years of doing the actual job and knowing exactly where the pain is.
If that sounds like someone worth trusting with your records — I'm here.
14 days free, then £5.99 per month. After cancellation, records remain available for 30 days to export.
Have a look around — there's plenty of information here about MTD and how it all works. And if you can't find the answer you're looking for, just ask. I reply to everything.