Distil vs QuickFile
Accounting software, and the layer that fills it in.
The QuickFile figures on this page date from 5 March 2026 and have not been re-checked since. Confirm anything that matters on their own pages.
The two price shapes
Distil Solo
The practice entry plan. Every feature is on every tier.
£35a month, per practice
- 250 invoice documents a month
- 100 statement pages a month
- No per-client fee, and no minimum licence count
- Unlimited users
- MTD VAT and MTD for Income Tax filing to HMRC
- Every document is stored in UK data centres, encrypted at rest, and kept for seven years from upload, which covers the six-year HMRC rule.
14-day free trial. Cancel inside it and you pay nothing. No VAT added at checkout.
QuickFile
QuickFile, with the Affinity programme for practices
Freefor a sole trader
- Affinity, the practice programme, is priced per client
- A receipt hub for capturing documents
- A full double-entry ledger, sales invoicing and reports
- Open Banking feeds pull transactions in directly
- VAT return preparation is built in
Dated 5 March 2026, not re-checked since.
Where the two sit
These are different products rather than two prices for the same thing. QuickFile is the ledger the books live in. Distil is the layer in front of a ledger, and it publishes to Xero, QuickBooks or its own, including into QuickFile’s place in the stack. The honest comparison is not the subscription; it is how much of the coding still has to be done by hand once the documents have arrived.
| Volume | QuickFile Affinity | Distil |
|---|---|---|
| 12 clientspriced per client on Affinity | Per client | £35Solo |
| 20 clientsabout 1,200 documents a month | Per client | £215Professional |
| 30 clientsabout 1,800 documents a month | Per client | £215Professional |
Where the two differ.
“Not published” means we did not find it when this comparison was written, on 5 March 2026, and it has not been re-checked since. It is a statement about our check, not about the product. Check quickfile.co.uk for what is current.
| Capability | Distil | QuickFile Affinity |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice and receipt extraction | Included | Not published |
| Bank statement extraction | Included | Not published |
| Bank reconciliation | Auto-match, at practice scale | Reconciled against Open Banking feeds |
| Categorisation that learns per client | Two-tier supplier rules | Not published |
| Publishing to Xero and QuickBooks | Included | Not published |
| Its own general ledger and seal | Included | A full double-entry ledger |
| MTD VAT filing to HMRC | Included | VAT return preparation is built in |
| MTD for Income Tax | Yes | Not published |
| P&L, cash flow and balance sheet | Included | Included |
| Sales invoicing | Included | Included |
| Mileage at HMRC rates | Included | Not published |
| Client upload links, no client account | Included | Not published |
| Seven-year document storage (covers HMRC six-year rule) | Included | Not published |
What QuickFile does well.
A comparison that only lists one side is not a comparison. These are real reasons to choose the other one.
Free for a sole trader
A single sole trader at low volume pays nothing. Distil has no free tier.
A complete accounting package
Double-entry books, sales invoicing, VAT and reports in one place. Distil is a bookkeeping layer that publishes into a ledger, its own or somebody else’s.
Open Banking feeds
Bank transactions arrive automatically. Distil takes bank data as an uploaded statement; direct feeds are coming soon.
Which one to pick.
Distil
Choose Distil when the bottleneck is the coding rather than the ledger. Documents arrive from clients on a link, get read, categorised against a real chart of accounts, reconciled and sealed, and the VAT return prefills from the result.
QuickFile
Choose QuickFile if you want one package that holds the books, and the volume is low enough that the coding is quick to check by hand.
Try it against your own month.
A 14-day free trial, and cancelling inside it costs nothing. Pick the plan whose allowance covers the documents your practice already puts through.
Comparing something else?
Distil’s prices and allowances on this page are read live from its own plan configuration, so they are whatever Distil currently charges. QuickFile figures are carried from the previous comparison page and not re-verified since; check the vendor’s own pages for what is current. QuickFile is a trademark of Quick File Ltd. Distil is not affiliated with QuickFile. Visit quickfile.co.uk for their current pricing.