Guide
The records HMRC expects you to keep
Updated
The record requirement is the part of this subject that gets attention only once it is too late, and it is the single largest driver of what a crypto accountant charges.
What is required
HMRC requires separate records for each transaction, including the type of tokens, the date you disposed of them, the number of tokens disposed of and their pound sterling values.
Per transaction, and in sterling. A token-to-token trade has no sterling figure in it, so one has to be established for the moment of the trade and recorded.
Why it decays
Exchanges close. Accounts get locked. Download windows expire. Wallets are lost, and the seed phrase with them.
A history that was one click away last year is sometimes a reconstruction exercise this year, and reconstruction is exactly what a large fee is paying for.
The wallet you forgot
The most common cause of a wrong position is not a rule misapplied. It is a wallet or exchange nobody included, which breaks the pool for that token type and therefore every disposal from it.
Make the list before the first conversation with an adviser: every exchange, every wallet, every bridge, every hardware device. A specialist will ask for more than you expect and will still miss what you do not tell them.
Export now, whatever you decide
Whether you file yourself, use software or engage a specialist, exporting full transaction histories from every venue while you still can is free and unambiguously worth doing.
It costs an hour. Reconstructing three years of activity from partial data costs considerably more than an hour, and the result is worse.