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Author: Gareth Smyth

Firstly, congratulations. That may seem premature, but it’s certainly appropriate for everyone whose qualifying R&D tax credits claim has been managed by randd.

We have a 100% claim success rate across our 15 years of experience in the industry, sharing a strong relationship with HMRC.

So, if this is your first time, where to begin? Well, a good idea is to familiarise yourself with the types of R&D expenditure which can be claimed for. These are:

  • Staff wages and other related costs
  • Payments made to sub-contractors and external workers
  • The cost of materials consumed
  • Light, heat and power costs

And claims can be made by businesses that fit the following description:

  • UK limited companies that are still trading
  • Companies of all sizes in all sectors
  • Both profitable and loss-making businesses

If you believe your company ticks the right boxes, joining forces with an R&D tax credits expert like randd can ensure the process evolves as smoothly as possible.

As each claim comprises a retrospective look at the work carried out, you will need to provide a detailed recollection of the R&D projects your business has completed.

randd will explain the scheme and tell you what we need to know. Sometimes, clients have difficulty remembering dates of when particular activities occurred, so we advise you to refresh your memory of important aspects such as the initial trial-and-error, when the first uncertainty happened, what that comprised and who was involved in the project.

You will also need clear records that can be accessed which break down specific costings. These costs include payroll for any permanent staff included in the R&D and sub-contractor invoices, specifically from the dates in question, retrospective across the maximum last two accounting periods.

Also important is a concise idea of any wasted materials encountered or prototypes you spent money on, plus access to utility bill records.

How can randd help you with your R&D tax credits claim?

In contrast to the vast majority of accountancy practices, at randd we have the resources to dedicate a specialist team to handling your R&D tax relief claim, putting in the countless hours of research required to ensure no stone is left unturned in building a case that will guarantee you receive the maximum value possible.

With expertise accrued over more than 15 years in this industry, we are ideally placed to identify and include every eligible activity – and we have successfully claimed back millions of pounds through our simplified, efficient procedure.

Also, as mentioned above, we maintain a 100% claim success rate and we have a proven track record of claiming back up to NINE times more R&D tax relief than an accountant, alternative agent or a self-submission claim would.

Nevertheless, it is highly important for randd to manage our clients’ expectations and ensure the process is undertaken flawlessly to avoid any unexpected obstacles along the way.

What we will not do is state during your initial call with our team that you definitively have a qualifying claim because there are various restrictions we must work with.

For example, there may be certain elements you think are eligible to be included in a claim when in reality they cannot be. The areas of expenditure need to be clearly managed and described.

We will also ask a lot of questions to make sure each claim is completely valid. If we have any concerns around that, your claim will not be put forward – so at randd we are careful never to tell anyone at the beginning of the process they have a valid claim until we have made the required progress.

What is a typical timescale for an R&D tax credits claim from beginning to end?

Essentially, the process is likely to evolve over a period of around 12 weeks.

Firstly, you will have a pre-qualifying call with a member of our team who, if they deem the activity qualifies, will issue a contract. When the contract has been signed and returned, one of randd’s experienced R&D tax credits managers will contact you and book you in for an initial consultation within the first one-to-two week period depending on availability.

Once the claim has been qualified and we have obtained all of your R&D costings, we can calculate the value of your claim and submit it to HMRC within a two-to-three week window after that.

Once submitted, you will typically hear back from HMRC within eight to 12 weeks. Therefore, we advise working to a 12-week/three-month turnaround period.

What else do I need to know?

  1. Assuming you meet the criteria outlined above, you can make an R&D tax credits claim each year. What you receive back will be a percentage of your qualifying expenditure
  2. Your eligible R&D activities do not necessarily need to have taken place in the UK, although that will only remain the case until April 1st 2024 – the date for this change had originally been disclosed as exactly one year earlier, but the government opted to push it back. From April 2024, all R&D work has to be undertaken in the UK to qualify for tax relief.
  3. Having listed above what does qualify as R&D expenditure, we should also state what is not eligible:
  • Money spent on fixed assets such as land and buildings
  • Staff meal expenses
  • Shareholder dividend payouts
  • Recruitment and referral costs, including of R&D staff
  • PAYE staff who are not directly linked to R&D activity
  • Costs of items used in production
  1. As well as the latest financial year, you can also claim retrospectively for the previous two years. For example, if you submitted a claim on April 5 2023 at the end of the financial year, you had the option on that date to also claim for 2020-21 and 2021-22 if you had not already done so.

Ensuring all boxes are checked in building a case that will guarantee you receive the greatest amount of R&D tax relief for which you are eligible is not easy – in fact, it is a process that requires numerous hours of painstaking research.

At randd, we have the resource, and unparalleled knowledge and experience in our field, to put in all of that work and then go the extra mile to maximise the value of your claim.

If you would like to enlist randd’s help with making an R&D tax credits claim, call 01332 409 711 or email [email protected]