Best-in-Class R&D Tax Relief Training
Here are the reviews of our training courses, with thanks to our many members and certification candidates.
James Lizars
For a small accounting practice operating in an R&D intensive niche, having everything in-house for a full and compliant R&D service is tough.The community, the helpline, the second-set of eyes, and the training modules have all proved to be invaluable. They’ve provided clarity and confidence in how we’re advising our clients and given us access to expert additional resource when we’ve needed it.
Lisa Donald
Would highly recommend to everyone working in R&D no matter your role. Being on the commercial side of things it is imperative that you know who you are selling to and what qualifies. Businesses you are selling to, and work for, are at risk if you do not understand the fundamentals.
Jonathon Yeomans
It’s an incredibly useful addition to our internal R&D training programme, accessible 24/7, which helps to consolidate R&D learning by testing the candidate’s knowledge on all aspects of the scheme as they progress.
It’s also a valuable additional to our “belt and braces” approach of ensuring that all our customer-facing staff have the deepest knowledge of the R&D tax scheme possible.
Susan Parker
This community of professionals is exemplary, and the information provided in the training would help many people grasp the concept of R&D and its complexities. I highly recommend this to any R&D Advisor.
Kevin Johnson
The R&D Community is a must for those R&D professionals that want to double check their own knowledge and/or learn more details about the scheme. It enables you to give better quality advice and provide an educational approach to clients that want to make a claim.
Allan McGinness
As R&D tax is a very subjective subject having the experience of multiple players helps to clear some muddy waters in the claim process.
Being in The R&D Community gives an element of security and the knowledge that we are trying to do things properly and to the best of our ability.
I have been working in tax for many years now and I’ve come across some difficult topics. At the beginning of 2024, I began to find R&D just as complex (if not more), because of all the moving parts. In the profession we work in, it is unlikely to get support at the drop of a hat, for example, it can take days or weeks to appoint tax counsel. The R&D community were there on hand to help me. The certification course was great as it was divided into the key areas. I’ve made lots of notes and made my own PowerPoint presentations to discuss with clients. Finally, I’ve actually really enjoyed being part of this community, so thanks guys.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the programme. I do not come from an accountancy background and the welcome into the Cohort and support you get whilst completing the programme is fantastic. I feel my knowledge has increased and I am much more confident navigating the minefield that is the R&D scheme(s). It’s been a brilliant few weeks and I really feel this has been valuable to my development.
The program gives you a greater understanding of the scheme from a wider perspective, having worked for a multinational R&D specialist previously I was very prescribed to their way of interpreting R&D relief, while I still do not see their approach as wrong, it has given me greater perspective of the approach HMRC take and given me tools to support clients and navigate HMRCs interpretations more efficiently.
I did struggle with some of the questions wording and feel some questions could be open to interpretation, especially when the knowledge is limited. I do think this has been only on a couple of the courses so may be the personal writing style of the question setter, but simplifying the question wording with some consistency would have helped me a lot.
My experience with the programme was great. Its flexibility allowed me to efficiently balance my time between work, personal life, and the programme itself.
Despite having five years of experience in R&D, the programme provided opportunities to refresh my knowledge in key areas. Each topic was brilliantly planned and delivered by the R&D Community team, offering insightful, engaging, and highly relevant content.
I recommend this programme to anyone looking to advance their knowledge in R&D for tax purposes. I must add it is extremely refreshing to see a group of people looking to raise the standards of the industry.
I’ve been involved in R&D Tax Relief in one form or another for the last 20 years. For the last nearly 12 years, it has been my business.
Imposter Syndrome is something I have been competing with for all of that time. All of my “knowledge” has come from CIRD and from HMRC Enquiries into claims that I was involved with before setting up in business for myself. In those days an enquiry was a learning experience for both HMRC and for me, it was not the brain-numbing slog that exists today.
I am hoping that the results from this process will prove to myself and hopefully my existing and future customers that I do know what I am talking about. I can safely say that despite all of my experience this course tested and enhanced my knowledge and understanding of the R&D Tax Relief schemes in their various guises and I think I will be putting some of that new knowledge into practice as we move forward with new clients and claims. I have also reviewed most of CIRD at one point or another, but when you read and re-read things your knowledge and understanding improves.
Finally the support that you get from within the cohort and from Richard, Kevin, Paul and Karen has been top class.
If you think you know R&D Tax Relief and you think you are too big or too important to undertake this accreditation, you will take something new away from this process. I dare you to prove me wrong!
Overall, the experience of the Certification Programme was excellent. There was always support when needed from both The R&D Community team members and fellow members of the cohort. Additional material was made available such as practical examples and the office hours webinars made the information of the courses easy to understand in real world contexts and discussed the variances possible in different scenarios!
Very well structured, professional and extremely useful in reinforcing existing knowledge. After 8 years supporting R&D tax claims, certainly learnt more than expected, particularly through the additional reading (introducing new materials) and definitely the live webinars, so many thanks Richard, Karen, Kevin and the wider team.
I just wanted to say a big thank you to this amazing R&D community. After taking the exam and diving into the course materials, I’m back at my desk feeling fresh, motivated, and inspired. It’s been such a rewarding journey.
Even though R&D Tax is part of my daily work, this course has been a game-changer. The insights from the webinars, cohort discussions, and the incredible support from Richard and the team were absolutely amazing. Feeling so motivated and inspired—thank you all!
The full experience of the programme was great, my knowledge has vastly improved. The team’s resources have been top-drawer.
The sessions were incredibly interactive, with hands-on activities and real-world examples that made complex topics easy to grasp in particularly the merged scheme and explaining eligibility. The trainers were knowledgeable and approachable, I especially appreciated how the course broke down technical concepts into practical steps, making them accessible and immediately applicable to the work that we do on a daily basis.
Adam Shakespeare
Presented in a way that is easy to digest, pick up and start very easily which gives you the comfort of not being left out of date in an area of tax that is a bit of a moving target.
Max Glennon
The course has been incredibly useful to help us quickly decipher some of the more nuanced changes in the Merged Scheme, particularly in relation to subcontracted costs (both domestically and overseas), as well as how grants and subsidies interact with the new scheme.
Kevin Johnson
The course was enjoyable, informative and highly relevant to changes coming into the scheme from 1st April. I particularly liked how any past scheme rules were explained first, so any new changes could be appreciated more. A well worthwhile investment (of an hour and a half) of my time to keep up to date, and my own CPD plan.
Chelsey Gilluley
Information presented in a way that is more digestible and easily understood.
Oliver Mountford
I found the merged scheme course extremely insightful, and it gave me the opportunity to test my understanding of the changes with short quizzes. The course simplifies the guidance released by HMRC and is easy to understand. I would recommend the course to all advisors/accountants.
— Qualifying Costs – It helps me to retain focus in the right areas and ask better questions of my clients.
— Ethics & Marketing – Having done the course previously I think we are on a good path, but need to update for Merged and ERIS schemes.
— Reinforced the importance of linking usage of AI with PCRT requirements. Having used specialist AI for some 30+ months, will investigate generative AI options to plug the gaps.
— Responsible Use of AI – I wasn’t fully sure on guidance surrounding AI, it’s great to have this clarified and my knowledge on responsible AI usage improved.
— Explaining Eligibility – it reaffirms a good process to follow
— Ethics & Marketing – As a result of this course, we will add ‘our mission and goals’ to our eligibility review process so our clients can see them.
— Explaining Eligibility – I believe there are a few badly worded questions that is subjective in this material, especially around the key information we want to gain from the first technical meetings.
Accountancy Basics – I had no knowledge regarding the ERIS Scheme, so it was super useful to learn this. Existing topics that I had some knowledge on before, I was able to develop further.
— Ethics & Marketing – I was happy to find that many of the suggestions around ethics and marketing in the R&D space conformed to views I hold privately already. Enjoyed some of the practical tips and jotted them down.
— Explaining Eligibility – This course has allowed me to be more structured when talking to clients. I thought this part of the course was well set out and easy to follow and understand
— Explaining Eligibility – It has confirmed what we are already doing with our clients, but defined it and the templates are a great addition and we will be using these going forwards
— Qualifying Leads – We already have a strong screening process for prospects and client renewals but excellent summaries of the 5 different schemes and ballparking claim sizes.
— Eligibility in Software – Although software is an area generally showing likelihood of R&D, it’s complex. The material gave great examples of the different types of software and the related competent professionals, to help distinguish between likely non-qualifying and likely qualifying examples of R&D.
— Qualifying Costs – The course had a positive impact.
— Additional Information Forms – The material explains the purpose of the additional information form and offers best practice for it’s completion.
— Qualifying Costs – Easy to understand videos and breakdown of costs makes it easy to get to grip with the costs that can be claimed and not claimed.
— Qualifying Costs – The course was reassuring and had great summaries of all relevant areas explained in a very succinct and clear way
— Additional Information Forms – Very good
— Additional Information Forms – This course is useful to know the quality of information rather than quantity expected by HMRC.
— Explaining Eligibility – It’s reinforced our current knowledge and understanding.
— Qualifying Costs – Particularly liked the explanations on capital assets and testing.
— Explaining Eligibility – The course is clear and concise and well worth carrying out.
— Ethics & Marketing – It’s given clarification on a number of issues and also very informative on others.
