Leading R&D tax specialists made.simplr is calling on businesses to accelerate their year-end to help gain immediate access to R&D tax credits to combat cash flow issues.
The business, which has developed an innovative, cloud-based R&D tax credit claim system, says that there are potentially millions of pounds of funding out there for firms via the tax relief.
With many traditional lenders restricting borrowing, business leaders could benefit from bringing forward their year-end date to advance the claim period.
R&D tax credits offer a fantastic opportunity to a wide range of businesses to tap into either cash via a tax credit or benefit from a substantial tax saving. In fact, more than £5.1 billion of support was made available via the scheme in 2017-18, according to the latest HMRC figures.
Sarah Malter, Managing Director at Made.Simplr, said: “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 quickly 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 very short period.
“However, where a company is only part of the way through its 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, added Sarah, 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,” said Sarah.
“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.”
Made.Simplr says that businesses looking to tap into urgent funding via tax reliefs should speak with their accountant first to make sure it doesn’t affect their business in other ways.
The firm is helping many accountancy firms to speed up their R&D tax credit claims already by using automation via the cloud to collate the information required to prepare an HMRC-ready claim.
Sarah said; “What would have once taken businesses or accountancy firms hours or days to produce, can now be done much quicker by applying the technology we have developed.
“By drastically speeding up the process and making it more efficient we are helping to reduce the cost of providing R&D advice and services for many accountancy firms and allowing them to tap into a wider audience.
“We believe that now is an ideal time for firms to be considering how they market and provide R&D advice to clients, as from our own experience many businesses are currently very eager to make claim and obtain funding that will help their businesses to survive this challenging period.”
