Most mobile mechanics invoice customers for two very different things on the same job: your labour (the actual skill and time), and the parts you sourced and fitted, often bought from a motor factor at trade price and marked up slightly when you invoice the customer. It's tempting to think only your labour "counts" as your income, since the parts money just passes through to cover what you paid out.
For MTD purposes, it doesn't work that way. Your qualifying income is your full invoice total, parts and labour combined, before you deduct what you paid the motor factor for the parts. What you spent on parts is then claimed back as a business expense, reducing your taxable profit, but it doesn't reduce the gross income figure used to check your MTD threshold.
Call-out fees, diagnostic charges, and emergency out-of-hours premiums are all separate income streams from the actual repair work, but they combine into the same qualifying income total. Many mobile mechanics run a mix of scheduled bookings (services, MOTs prep, brake jobs) and reactive call-outs (breakdowns, won't-starts) — both count identically.
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Your full invoice total, both parts and labour combined, counts as your qualifying income. What you paid for the parts is then claimed back separately as a business expense, which reduces your taxable profit but not your gross qualifying income figure.
No, call-out fees, diagnostic charges, and the repair labour all combine into the same qualifying income total, regardless of how you itemise them on the invoice.
In most cases yes, via the Annual Investment Allowance, which lets you deduct the full cost against your profit in the year you buy it, up to a £1 million annual limit.
Either is allowed, but you need to pick one method per vehicle and stick with it consistently for that vehicle — you can't switch between actual costs and the mileage rate year to year for the same van.
Yes, all self-employment income combines into one qualifying income figure, whether it comes through a booking platform or direct customer contact.