What’s our strategy going forward?
Our mission is still the same – to raise standards in R&D tax relief in any way we can. Our primary ways of achieving that are still training, support, and by building a community of like-minded people who want to learn and help each other to get even better.
We have some important updates on what’s coming in 2024.
On the training front, we’ve invested a significant amount of time in building courses for our members (a mixture of accountants and R&D specialists). This established bank of training content now allows us to move forward in a number of new and exciting ways.
1. Level 1 Certification for R&D advisors.
We’ll be launching this in late summer/early autumn. It will be aimed at people who already prepare R&D claims, as well as those who work in sales, marketing and other support roles. The courses you’ll complete as part of our Level 1 certification will take you through:
- The essentials of the Merged Scheme
- How to build ethics & good marketing practice into your R&D Service
- How to pre-qualify and sell to potential R&D clients
- How to discuss R&D with your clients and get the information you need for their claim
- Qualifying costs & how to apportion them
- Accountancy basics for R&D tax relief
As part of our certification process, our friendly R&D experts will take you through a set of assessments to establish your starting level of knowledge, create a learning plan with you, give you access to a suite of training courses, and when you’re ready, take you through our certification assessments. Once you’re certified, we’ll display your details on our website, raising your profile with the many SMEs who visit our website in search of a good R&D advisor.
If you’re interested in the idea of a very structured coaching and training path that results in certification, then make sure you join the waiting list for more details as they come out.
2. Helping our members educate their clients about R&D
We believe that training and certification for advisors is really important, but it shouldn’t end there. Many SMEs don’t have a great understanding of the scheme, and that makes them vulnerable to submitting poor quality claims. They might also have trouble identifying knowledgeable, responsible advisors.
So, in collaboration with our members, we’re planning to develop new short courses aimed specifically at busy, early-stage SMEs. The objective is to educate the SME about the basics of the scheme(s) and to save our members’ time.
By granting controlled access to SME-specific courses, our members will be able to avoid repeated back-and-forth about the workings of the scheme. Instead, they’ll be able to give their clients valuable resources that quickly bring them up to speed with how the relief works and what projects are eligible. This then allows clients and advisors to start their conversations from a more informed and productive starting point. That’s going to be particularly useful for anyone screening large numbers of prospects each month.
3. Creating a bridge between the R&D advisory community and HMRC
We want to engage with HMRC to explore whether some of our courses would be useful for their caseworkers, many of whom are new to R&D tax relief. After all, many large organisations often find that training programmes are difficult to develop and maintain; HMRC is presumably no exception.
We see the potential to develop training courses that would be shared between HMRC and our members. This would be an important step towards finding more common ground in what has become a fairly contentious and emotional area of tax.
4. Integrations with R&D software platforms
Partnerships and integrations with R&D technology companies are an important part of our strategy in 2024. These software packages typically offer their users a convenient way to prepare R&D claim documentation, but often don’t offer integrated training or support.
By working closely with these types of companies, we will help their users access our training and support, resulting in accelerated learning about R&D tax relief as they continue to use the software.
Stay updated about our R&D Advisor Certification
We think that it should be easy to identify reputable and knowledgeable R&D advisors. Certification is a clear path to that goal. You should be able to earn the Level 1 certification we’ve outlined above later this year. If you’re keen to hear the latest news and updates about its availability, you can join the waiting list.
There’s a lot planned for 2024, but we’re very much up for the challenge! If you’re keen to invest in your R&D service and take it to the next level, now is a great time to join us so you can help to shape all these ideas and be amongst the first to put them into practice with your clients!
