Your November already has two dates in it

Three things moved this week. One changes how your platform pays you, one is a deadline with your name on it if you are over a certain size, and one quietly hands you back an afternoon. None of them is a crisis. All of them are a diary entry.

STORY ONE • EFFECTIVE 1 NOVEMBER

ONLYFANS CHANGED ITS TERMS, AND TWO OF THE CHANGES HAVE A BANK ACCOUNT ATTACHED

In early October, OnlyFans told creators about a new set of terms taking effect on 1 November. Most people read the first line, felt mildly threatened and archived it. Entirely reasonable. So here is the version written by an accountant rather than a legal department.

The 20 percent platform fee has not moved. That is the good news, and it is genuinely good news. What has moved is quieter. Payouts that need currency conversion now carry processing and exchange rate fees, where the old terms only warned that your own bank might charge you. The bar for acting on an account has also dropped: from a belief that you “seriously or repeatedly” breached the rules to “have or may have breached” them, and the platform can hold earnings while it looks into things. For other changes to the terms, notice is now “reasonable efforts” rather than a promise in advance.

There is also a clause worth reading twice if you pay for software. The new terms restrict tools designed to collect data from your content, and say your content may not be used to train AI. If a chat manager or a CRM sits between you and your fans, find out what it actually does with your content before 1 November, not after.

Here is why this is a bookkeeping story rather than a legal one. If you only ever record the number that lands in your bank, you are recording your income after a platform fee and now possibly after a conversion fee, and both of those are business costs you can claim. A net figure hides them. Three columns, every time: what the fan paid, what the platform took, what reached you.

STORY TWO • DUE 7 NOVEMBER

THE SECOND MAKING TAX DIGITAL UPDATE IS DUE, AND THE SOFTWARE QUESTION IS ANSWERED

If your qualifying income for 2024/25 was over £50,000 (that is your self employment and property income added together, before any costs), you are already inside Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. Digital record keeping started on 6 April 2026, the first quarterly update was due on 7 August, and the second is due on 7 November 2026. Two more follow, on 7 February and 7 May 2027. That is the whole shape of it.

And this is the part I would like said out loud more often: HMRC does not have a box marked adult creator. You are a self employed creative with trading income, filed under exactly the same rules as a wedding photographer, a tattoo artist, or a man making a comfortable living from bespoke garden gnomes. The software does not know what you film. It knows what you earned.

If you have been waiting for the perfect app before you start, the waiting is over: HMRC’s list held 165 recognised software options as at 4 October. That is a generous number of ways to type the same figures into the same boxes. Pick one, connect the account the money actually lands in, and give it an hour this week rather than a panic on the sixth.

Quarterly updates are not a punishment. They are four short conversations instead of one enormous argument in January.

STORY THREE • LIVE FROM 8 OCTOBER

IF YOU ALSO SELL MERCH, SHOPIFY WILL NOW WRITE YOUR STORE POLICIES FOR YOU

A small one, for everyone running a shop alongside the subscription income. On 8 October, Shopify switched on automatically generated store policies: returns and refunds, contact information, terms of service, shipping and legal notice. They stay up to date as your store settings change. You turn it on under Settings, then Policies, then the automated policy option.

Worth doing, and worth understanding the limit. Shopify is explicit that you remain responsible for your policies and for your store’s compliance with the law. Automation moves the typing. It does not move the liability. Read what it writes once, and make sure the refund policy matches what you actually do when someone emails you upset, because that is the version your bookkeeping will have to live with.

ONE FOR THE DIARY

THE BUDGET IS ON 28 OCTOBER

Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget on Wednesday 28 October. Everything circulating right now is prediction, not policy, so I am not going to pass any of it on to you as though it were decided. When something is actually announced, you will get it here, in plain words, with the date it starts.

Keeping your own records? Start with The Adult Creator’s UK Tax Survival Guide 2026/27, your beginner info pack, free at hmrcafterdark.kit.com. Ten mistakes, each with the fix.

And if something here raised a question, however simple it feels, message me at HMRC After Dark or email hi@hmrcafterdark.com. I am here to translate.