What does ‘good’ R&D tax service look like?

It can be hard to know what good service looks like when it comes to R&D tax relief. Bad service is a lot easier to spot.  

The quality of service you receive has a significant impact on the value of your R&D claim and its robustness, but also the overall experience for you and other key stakeholders.  

At ForrestBrown, we believe that too many businesses are settling for an average or below-par level of service. A fear of the unknown and a limited frame of reference around what to expect and quality markers prevent businesses from moving supplier when they really should.   

The upshot is that you could be missing out on value and potentially putting yourselves at risk. In this article, we provide some pointers on identifying good service and highlight what you can expect from working with ForrestBrown. With the right partner, the incentive remains powerful and can have a transformative effect on your business.  

The challenge of knowing ‘good’ service

Any decision on whether to switch R&D tax provider should be based on an assessment of the quality of service you currently receive. Herein lies one of the biggest challenges: how can you accurately judge what ‘good’ service looks like? 

Depending on your role, previous experience with professional service providers and how close you are to your R&D supplier and the work they do, your assessment will be limited to a particular frame of reference.  

We often find that those in charge of choosing an R&D tax supplier don’t have the level of knowledge of the incentive to drill into and assess the details that underpin the service. You may not know the definition of R&D or be fully confident in the eligibility criteria, especially when it comes to stress-testing projects. This compounds some of the concerns about switching. The old adage of better the devil you know wins out.   

Many R&D providers present surface-level similarities, which can prompt businesses to focus on fees in an attempt to find a differentiator. But fees should not be the driving force in identifying a new provider.   

How ForrestBrown defines good service

At ForrestBrown, good service is demonstrated by sustainable, supportable, and embedded practices. We will make sure you have processes and/or internal methodology guides to help you and the relevant teams understand the requirements and mitigate risk. 

ForrestBrown doesn’t simply want to deliver your R&D tax claim, we want to have a wider impact on your approach to R&D tax, funding strategy and innovation.  

Collaboration: Your ForrestBrown team will work closely with key people throughout the R&D process. This includes your competent professionals, in-house tax team or individual, your other partners and HMRC.

• Often businesses that claim R&D tax relief are carrying out highly technical work. Our industry-experienced technical specialists understand these details and will speak with your team on a peer-to-peer level. It also means they’re able to effectively communicate the scientific and technological advances being sought to HMRC. 
• We invest time in developing our processes to work seamlessly with your accountant: regularly sharing information and providing support alongside creating robust R&D claims. 

Optimise value – we want to make sure that your innovation is fully rewarded by ensuring that no value is left on the table.

• Quality assurance: ForrestBrown’s processes embed QA at each stage, drawing on the expertise of our multidisciplinary team of chartered tax advisers and accountants, lawyers, technical specialists and former HMRC tax inspector. 
• Future focus: We want to help you build long-term growth and success. 
• Looking beyond R&D: We consider how best to support the innovation lifecycle and flex our scope of work to meet your needs. ForrestBrown takes a proactive approach to help you unlock opportunity across other innovation incentives including grants, capital allowances and Patent Box. 

The Chartered Institute of Taxation – the professional member body – offers guidance on how to choose an R&D tax adviser. 

R&D health check and optimisation review

To help you understand whether your current provider is delivering value, we can look at your last R&D claim. With ClaimClarity, we carry out a free five-point review. This identifies any technical errors, flags risk, as well as any omissions that mean the claim is not optimised. This can put your mind at ease, knowing your current provider is delivering a robust and fully optimised claim.  

Find out more about our R&D claim audit: ClaimClarity. 

How to assess the level of service

We’ve broken down some key focus areas to help you understand the quality of service you’re receiving from your provider, whether that’s an accountant or specialist.  

Wider team

Look at the wider team, in particular, your access to an account manager and relevant other team members. Are they quick to return calls and emails?  

Specialist knowledge

In terms of specialist knowledge, you want to be confident that both tax and industry expertise are available, and positively impacting your claim. At ForrestBrown, our technical team is drawn from a range of sectors including life sciences, digital & technologies, and manufacturing.

Embedded processes

Does your partner transfer knowledge to your internal team and have processes and methodologies firmly embedded to assist them? This is key to longer-term engagement and success. You also want to ensure continuity if people leave the business; embedded methodologies mitigate risk in this area.    

Actionable strategies

Is their advice actionable and tailored to your business needs and longer term vision? R&D claims shouldn’t be treated in isolation or as a box checking exercise.  

Respectful of your time and resources

Everyone is time poor. You want your partner to treat your time and the time of technical leads as precious. Clearly directed and efficient sessions are essential. We achieve this through a well-defined claim process where we capture the information needed, then prepare your claim for review prior to submission. 

Proactivity and agility

You don’t want a provider that is rigid in their approach or hands off. You want timely updates on any changes and to be made aware of other incentives and any wider considerations around your approach to innovation.  

Claim size and value

With R&D tax, the accuracy of your claim is key. Ultimately, you want to ensure that no value is left behind and that all eligible activity is captured. Our tax and technical experts achieve this by working together to rigorously review your projects and identify costs.