Robust, HMRC-ready R&D claims under the new merged scheme, maximised relief, defensible technical narratives.
R&D tax credits reward UK companies that resolve genuine scientific or technological uncertainty, but the rules changed fundamentally with the merged scheme, an above-the-line 20% credit worth roughly 15% net of Corporation Tax. We prepare end-to-end claims under the merged scheme and the enhanced R&D-intensive support (ERIS) route for loss-making SMEs, with technical narratives and cost breakdowns built to survive HMRC's tougher compliance regime. Our ACCA-qualified team handles eligibility, costing, the mandatory additional information form and CT600 entries from one fixed price.
For accounting periods beginning on or after 1 April 2024, most companies claim under the single merged scheme: a 20% above-the-line expenditure credit, taxable, giving a net benefit of around 15% after the main 25% Corporation Tax rate. We calculate the credit through the seven-step set-off, post it correctly to the CT600 and reconcile it against your tax position.
Loss-making SMEs whose qualifying R&D is at least 30% of total expenditure can claim Enhanced R&D Intensive Support, a 186% deduction (the 86% uplift) with a payable credit of up to 14.5% on the surrenderable loss. We test the intensity ratio, apply connected-company aggregation and choose between ERIS and the merged scheme to maximise cash.
We capture every eligible category, staff PAYE/NIC and pension, externally provided workers, subcontractors, consumables, software, data and cloud computing costs, and apportion mixed costs defensibly. We also apply the new UK territoriality restriction on overseas EPWs and subcontractors that bites for periods from 1 April 2024.
HMRC rejects vague claims. We draft project narratives that articulate the scientific or technological advance sought, the uncertainties faced and how a competent professional could not readily deduce the solution, the actual statutory test, not marketing language. Each project is mapped to the BEIS/DSIT guidelines.
Since 8 August 2023, every claim must be supported by a pre-submission Additional Information Form, and most claims need an advance Claim Notification within six months of period-end for first-time or lapsed claimants. We prepare and file both, so a missed notification never voids your claim.
We respond to HMRC R&D compliance checks and nudge letters, and review the previous two open periods so you can amend within the standard time limit (generally two years from the end of the accounting period). We will tell you honestly where a claim is weak rather than expose you to penalties.
With HMRC's increased enquiry rate and mandatory disclosure forms, an overstated claim is a liability. Our ACCA-qualified accountants apply the statutory uncertainty test and document the advance properly, so your relief holds up under a compliance check.
You deal with a single named accountant who learns your projects, not a call centre or a contingent-fee sales team. We reply to queries within 72 hours so claim deadlines and notification windows are never missed.
We charge transparent fixed fees of £99, £199 or £499 on a rolling monthly basis, not the percentage of your refund that contingent R&D firms take. You keep the full benefit of your claim, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Because we handle your Corporation Tax and accounts, the R&D credit is reconciled against your CT600, losses and group position, catching interactions with full expensing, the 40% first-year allowance and loss surrenders that standalone R&D shops miss.
We pull cost data straight from Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent or Sage, so building the qualifying-expenditure schedule is fast and accurate, no rekeying, no guesswork on apportionment.
Under the merged scheme, an R&D tax credit is worth 20% of your qualifying spend as an above-the-line expenditure credit, which leaves roughly 15% in your pocket once Corporation Tax is taken off. Because the 20% credit is itself taxable, a profitable company paying the 25% main rate keeps about 15p of net benefit for every pound of qualifying R&D. A company inside the 19% small profits rate keeps slightly more, around 16.2p in the pound.
Here is the maths on a real claim. Say a software company spends 200,000 on qualifying R&D in a year, mostly developer salaries plus some cloud-compute costs. The 20% expenditure credit is 40,000. That credit is brought into the tax computation and taxed at the company's Corporation Tax rate, so a company at 25% is left with a net benefit of 30,000. That 30,000 either reduces the Corporation Tax bill or, for a loss-making company, can be paid out as cash after the seven-step set-off, subject to the PAYE cap.
Loss-making, research-heavy SMEs can do better through Enhanced R&D Intensive Support. ERIS lets you deduct an extra 86% of qualifying costs on top of the normal 100%, then surrender the resulting loss for a payable credit worth up to 14.5%. On the same 200,000 of qualifying spend, the enhanced deduction is 172,000, and surrendering that loss at 14.5% produces a cash credit of around 24,940, which is real money returned to a pre-revenue company that pays no Corporation Tax. We model both routes side by side and claim whichever pays you more.
If you want us to put your own numbers through this before you commit, book a free Tax Health Check and we will give you a realistic figure for your last open period, not a sales estimate.
| Route | Who it fits | How the relief is given | Headline rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merged R&D expenditure credit | Most companies, profit or loss making, periods from 1 April 2024 | 20% above-the-line credit, taxable, set off through seven steps | 20% gross, around 15% net |
| Enhanced R&D Intensive Support (ERIS) | Loss-making SMEs with R&D at 30%+ of total spend | Extra 86% deduction, then surrender the loss for a payable credit | 186% deduction, up to 14.5% payable |
See also: Free Tax Health CheckThe merged R&D tax credit scheme explained
Qualifying R&D is work that seeks an advance in science or technology by resolving a scientific or technological uncertainty that a competent professional in the field could not readily work out. It is not about whether the product is new to your market. It is about whether the underlying technical problem had a solution that was genuinely uncertain to a skilled person in your industry.
That distinction is where most claims live or die. Building a website from documented frameworks is not R&D. Developing a novel data-processing method when no off-the-shelf approach exists, and you cannot tell in advance whether it will work, usually is. The same logic applies well beyond software: a manufacturer reformulating a coating to hit a performance target that current materials cannot reach, or an engineering firm trying to integrate two systems that were never designed to talk to each other, are doing the kind of uncertainty-resolving work HMRC rewards.
Routine work is specifically excluded. Cosmetic changes, applying existing techniques in a standard way, market research, and the commercial or aesthetic side of product development do not qualify, even when they are difficult or expensive. HMRC also expects you to identify where the qualifying R&D starts and stops within a project, because the relief attaches to the technical problem-solving, not to the whole commercial endeavour around it.
We sit with your technical lead, your competent professional in HMRC's language, and pull the genuine uncertainty out of the project narrative. That is the part generic claim factories get wrong, and it is the part HMRC reads first when deciding whether to open an enquiry.
See also: How to reduce Corporation Tax legally
If your company is profitable, the question is settled: you claim the merged scheme 20% expenditure credit, because ERIS is only open to loss-making SMEs. The decision only arises when you are an SME making a loss and your R&D is intensive, meaning qualifying R&D expenditure is at least 30% of your total expenditure for the period. Hit that 30% threshold while loss-making and you can choose ERIS instead of the merged scheme, but not both for the same costs.
ERIS almost always returns more cash to a genuinely research-heavy, pre-revenue company, because surrendering an enhanced 186% deduction at 14.5% beats a 20% taxable credit on the same spend. But the intensity test is unforgiving and easy to fail by accident. Total expenditure includes far more than your R&D line, and connected-company expenditure is aggregated, so a single trading subsidiary or a large non-R&D cost can drop you under 30% and out of ERIS without warning.
Both routes share the same PAYE and National Insurance cap on the payable element: 20,000 plus 300% of your relevant PAYE and NIC liabilities for the period. For a company with a lean payroll and heavy subcontractor spend, that cap, not the headline rate, can be the real limit on the cash you receive, which is exactly the kind of interaction we test before we file rather than after.
We run the intensity ratio, apply the connected-company aggregation, check the PAYE cap, and then pick the route that puts the most money back, with the workings kept on file in case HMRC asks.
| Your position | Eligible route | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Profit-making company | Merged scheme only | ERIS is restricted to loss-making SMEs |
| Loss-making SME, R&D under 30% of total spend | Merged scheme | Fails the intensity condition for ERIS |
| Loss-making SME, R&D at least 30% of total spend | ERIS or merged scheme | Choose the higher-paying route, usually ERIS |
See also: Corporation Tax: the complete guide
A well-prepared claim takes us a few weeks from kick-off to submission, and HMRC typically aims to pay valid payable credits within about 40 days of a clean claim, though that clock resets if they ask questions. The bigger timing trap is upstream: if you are a first-time claimant, or you have not claimed in the previous three years, you must file a claim notification within six months of the end of your period of account, or the claim is dead before it starts. Miss that window and there is no relief to recover, however strong the project.
Every claim now also needs an Additional Information Form filed before the Company Tax Return, setting out the projects, the qualifying costs by category, and the technical narrative. We treat the notification and the AIF as hard deadlines and diarise them against your accounting reference date so nothing lapses.
On price, be wary of the contingent-fee model that still dominates this market, where the adviser takes a percentage of your refund, often 15% to 30%. On a 30,000 net benefit, that is up to 9,000 handed over, and the incentive to overstate the claim sits with the person preparing it, which is precisely what HMRC's tougher compliance regime is designed to catch. We charge a transparent fixed fee, so you keep the full benefit of your claim and the technical narrative is written to survive scrutiny, not to inflate a commission.
If you have an open period you have not claimed for, or a notification deadline coming up, talk to us before the window closes. We will tell you honestly whether there is a defensible claim there.
See also: Talk to a fixed-fee accountantHow to reduce Corporation Tax legally
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Work that seeks an advance in science or technology by resolving scientific or technological uncertainty that a competent professional in the field couldn't readily solve. It doesn't have to be successful, novel to the world, or in a lab, bespoke software, new manufacturing processes, and engineering integration work routinely qualify. Marketing innovation, cosmetic redesign, and routine debugging don't.
Under the merged scheme (accounting periods starting on or after 1 April 2024), most companies get a 20% above-the-line credit on qualifying expenditure, giving roughly 15p back per £1 spent after corporation tax. Loss-making R&D-intensive SMEs (where R&D is 30%+ of total expenditure) can claim the enhanced ERIS rate worth up to 27p per £1. Typical claims for our clients land between £15,000 and £100,000.
Staff salaries, employer NI and pension contributions for time spent on R&D, externally provided workers (subject to the 65% restriction), subcontractor costs (with the new rules tightening overseas spend), consumables used up in R&D, software licences, and a proportion of utilities and data costs. Capital expenditure is excluded but may qualify for R&D Allowances separately.
HMRC's compliance check rate rose sharply from 2023 onwards, with many claims rejected for thin technical narratives. We write claims to the standard HMRC actually wants, the technical uncertainty argued in the language of a competent professional, costs apportioned with timesheets or defensible estimates, and the Additional Information Form completed fully. If a claim is queried, we defend it at no extra cost.
Fixed fee or a contingent percentage (usually 12-18%) of the claim value, capped so you always keep the majority. We quote both upfront so you can pick. First conversation is free, if your work doesn't qualify, we'll tell you on the call rather than waste your time on a workshop.
Thirty minutes with an ACCA-qualified accountant. Most owners uncover £1,000-£3,000 in annual savings on the first call. If we are not the right fit, you walk away with a free tax review on the house.
