In times of crisis, where cash flow is constrained, businesses will be keen to find new ways of bringing funding into their company.
Unfortunately, with many traditional lenders restricting borrowing and the Government reducing the amount of financial support, business leaders may not know where to turn next.
R&D tax credits offer a fantastic opportunity to a wide range of businesses to tap into either the cash they need via a tax credit or benefit from a substantial tax saving.
Of course, most businesses may not be willing to wait for their year-end and may need urgent access to funding now.
Where a business’s year-end has already passed it may just be a simple proposition of obtaining their year-end information on qualifying R&D expenditure so that a claim can be calculated for the potential tax benefit from the previous year.
In these circumstances, with the right advice and a quick response from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), claims can be processed and the benefits received within a short period.
Where a company is only part of the way through their current financial year, matters are a little more complicated.
Where their year-end is only a few months or weeks away, they should prepare the records required to make a claim, including details of qualifying expenditure for projects they have undertaken during the financial year and submit this information to HMRC at the earliest opportunity.
Where a business’s year-end is six months or more away and they are in desperate need of funding they could also seek a change of financial year-end. This is quite an involved procedure, which may affect other aspects of their funding, but it could drastically accelerate a claim for expenditure made in the accounting period.
Where an existing claim is already with HMRC it is not possible to speed up a claim and it will be processed at the speed determined by the HMRC officers dealing with the matter.
Of course, one of the most effective ways of speeding up the preparation of a claim is by using automation via the cloud to collate the information required to prepare an HMRC-ready claim.
We are currently developing a new payments system which may help to accelerate funding further by allowing companies to get their credit before HMRC pays. We hope to bring you more details of this soon.
To find out how made.simplr – our cloud-based software as a service solution – can aid you and your clients with their claims, please contact us to arrange a demo today.
