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The Government has awarded funding to 17 key projects in the UK that are tackling key issues, including the building of offshore wind farms, digitising construction sites and creating low carbon heat from disused mines.

Each of the research and innovation projects will be awarded up to £50,000 of Government funding to support their aims to boost local economic growth, create high-value jobs and upskill local workers.

The funding forms part of the Government’s strategy to boost the UK’s economic recovery through research and development projects, with a focus on tackling key issues such as clean energy.

The projects include heating homes in Glasgow using energy from disused mines, researching methods of diagnosing cancer more quickly and digitising the UK construction centre to increase productivity and safety levels.

As part of its commitment to put Research and Development at the forefront of the UK’s economic recovery plan, the Government announced the first wave of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) ‘Strength in Places Fund’, with seven projects benefiting from more than £400 million in funding.

Funding for the second phase of the fund is set to be announced in spring 2021, with between £10 – 50 million in funding set to be made available. Applications for this phase closed in October 2019.

Alok Sharma, Business Secretary, said: “We are backing our innovators and with the support, they need to turn great ideas into first-class industries, products and technologies.

“From virtual construction projects to extracting clean heat from disused mines, the pioneering projects we are funding today will help create jobs and boost skills across the UK as we continue to drive forward our economic recovery.”

To find out how Made.Simplr could help you and your clients obtain R&D funding for relevant research and innovation projects, contact our expert team today.

Staff and directors at made.simplr are celebrating after their Managing Director, Dr Sarah Malter, has been shortlisted for a 2020 Best Business Women Awards.

Chosen from hundreds of hopeful entrants, Sarah has been named as a finalist for Best Business Woman in STEM, after demonstrating her excellence in the field and her work to promote and encourage other women to develop businesses in connected sectors.

As the daughter of two software developers, Sarah was brought up with technology at an early age and quickly developed a passion for innovation.

She has worked tirelessly to not only build Made.Simplr and her other business, Kapitalise, which have helped hundreds of businesses to access more than £30 million in R&D tax credit funding, but she also works as a guest lecturer at universities across the UK and mentors young girls to help them nurture their own passion for business and entrepreneurial skills.

Made.Simplr, in particular, makes use of the latest cloud technology to help the accountancy profession support more businesses with R&D tax credit claims through the clever use of automation. Its development and success has already gained it recognition via two competitive government-backed grants from Innovate UK.

Speaking about her shortlisting at the prestigious awards, Sarah said: “It is a real honour to be named as a finalist at these fantastic awards. Raising the profile of female leaders in STEM is important, as it is an industry where female participation is slowly increasing.

“I hope that future female entrepreneurs can look to me and my fellow finalists as examples of the excellent opportunities that this field offers and how women can flourish in an industry that has traditionally been viewed as predominantly male-led.”

Sarah will now have to wait until 23 April 2021 to find out whether she has won the tough competition, which was created to raise the profile of the UK’s leading female entrepreneurs and business role models.

Debbie Gilbert, organiser of The Best Business Women Awards said: “This is the sixth year of these prestigious awards. Given the situation with COVID-19, we were delighted with the number of entries. This showed us how determined our entrants were!

“The entries came in from across the UK and were judged by a panel of business experts. To be a finalist is a major achievement. The businesswomen selected have been chosen for their business acumen, determination, creativity and tenacity. All our finalists are shining examples of successful entrepreneurs who have proved their success to our judges.”

As well as being shortlisted for an individual award, Sarah’s business’s Kapitalise and made.simplr are also shortlisted for Accountancy Software of the Year at the 2020 Digital Accountancy Awards.

The R&D tax credit specialists at made.simplr are celebrating having been named as finalists at the prestigious 2020 Digital Accountancy Awards.

The digital platform, which is taking the accountancy world by storm, has been shortlisted for the Accountancy Software of the Year category for its exceptional innovations within the profession.

The judges at this year’s awards were impressed by made.simplr’s ability to use existing cloud accountancy platforms to collate information and automate the R&D tax credit claim process to produce HMRC-ready reports.

This innovation is helping accountancy firms to reduce the costs and manpower employed in assisting businesses with this form of tax relief and opening up the market so that smaller practices can offer support to other businesses as well.

As its name suggests, the ultimate goal of made.simplr is to make the R&D tax credit system simpler using technology so that funding is available to a wider variety of companies, from the very smallest businesses to medium and large-sized enterprises.

Dr Sarah Malter, Managing Director at made.simplr, said: “We are delighted to be recognised at this year’s Digital Accountancy Awards – it is a real honour.

“It is fantastic to see that our innovative cloud-based approach to R&D tax credit claims is gaining recognition. It is also encouraging to see that the accountancy profession understands the benefits and value of using cloud-based solutions to make their lives easier and, in return, help so many businesses make the most of the financial support for innovation that is out there in the UK.”

made.simplr has already won several Government grants through Innovate UK for its work and hopes to add another success to its roster of achievements this year. It will find out whether it has been successful at the Digital Accountancy Forum and Awards, which this year is being held virtually on 30 September 2020.

To find out more about made.simplr and its forward-thinking approach to R&D tax relief, book a demo today!

Smaller businesses across the UK may soon be able to automate their R&D tax credit claims thanks to new technology developed by innovators Made.Simplr.

As part of a package of £90 million of specialist grant enterprise funding from Innovate UK – the United Kingdom’s innovation agency – to support businesses affected by COVID-19, Made.Simplr is developing a cloud-based system that automates the R&D tax credit claim process for smaller businesses.

The new system will help those businesses that traditionally are unable to afford specialist the necessary specialist advice from an accountant or who have limited knowledge of the R&D tax credit scheme – which offers to provide tax relief of up to 33p in every £1 of qualifying expenditure for SMEs.

With millions of pounds worth of funding being missed each year, Made.Simplr believes its new platform will help hundreds of the UK’s smallest businesses and start-ups to get the financial support they need during this difficult period so that they can survive and thrive.

Dr Sarah Malter, Managing Director at Made.Simplr, said: “The very smallest businesses in the UK are often those with the most innovative ideas. These early-stage businesses often do not have the resources to tap into the benefits of R&D tax credit funding, which means they tend to miss out until they are much larger, by which point they may not be able to reclaim as much tax relief.

“This new system that we are developing, thanks to the funding provided by Innovate UK, is unique and should help to widen access to R&D tax credits at an essential time for these smaller businesses – when funding from lenders or other grants simply may not be available.”

Made.Simplr already works with a wide range of accountancy firms via its existing innovative cloud-systems, which are designed specifically to make R&D tax claims more efficient and cost-effective for accountancy firms of all sizes.

“We are taking the principles that we have learned from our current platform and are looking to simplify them and apply them to much smaller businesses – allowing us to develop things quickly,” explained Sarah.

“This new product is not designed to compete with our accountancy customers services, as it is aimed at much smaller businesses, who may not be unable to access their advice due to the costs involved.”

Accountants from across the UK have taken part in an informative webinar hosted by made.simplr that outlines how technology can be used to make R&D tax credits easier.

During the presentation, hosted by the made.simplr team, accountants got to learn more about made.simplr’s cloud-based software as a service (Saas) solution, which can automate much of the R&D tax credit claim process to prepare HMRC-ready reports.

The software, which is now employed by many accountancy firms across the UK, makes the provision of tax credit advice more cost-effective and the process of handling claims more efficient.

The free webinar from made.simplr explores the challenges that businesses and firms face when making a claim and the vast potential for funding for businesses due to the large amount of unclaimed tax relief.

Dr Sarah Malter, Managing Director at made.simplr, said: “We had a really good response from this webinar, but there are many more firms out there that could benefit from this presentation and the software that it highlights.

“Innovation is quickly and radically changing the accountancy landscape and firms must keep abreast of the latest developments and see how they can adapt their practice to meet ever-changing client needs.”

To view made.simplr’s explanatory webinar, please visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqZNc3-0IhA&t=6s

Accountancy firms and businesses in the UK are to be given a helping hand with the complexities and burdens of R&D tax credits via new innovative software.

made.simplr has been launched to help firms to process claims by automating the gathering and compiling of all of the necessary information to create HMRC ready reports.

Having already received two rounds of grant funding from Innovate UK – the Government’s innovation partner – the software firm hopes to capitalise on a market that it feels is massively underserved.

Dr Sarah Malter, Managing Director of made.simplr, said: “For years there have been studies coming out that show that utilisation of R&D tax credits in the UK is poor and that many more companies, large and small, could be benefitting from this funding.

“Despite the best efforts of some accountants to support their clients, there are barriers that prevent companies from making a claim, such as the scheme’s complexity and the burden of putting together and calculating an application.

“We believe made.simplr opens up this market so that smaller firms of accountants can take greater advantage of the revenue that they can obtain for processing and providing advice to R&D tax credit claimants.”

The app is able to work with Xero to gather the information required and compile it so that firms can focus on advising clients on how to make use of the tax relief available.

With future developments to enable other software platforms, such as Sage, to integrate with the platform the team behind made.simplr believes it can revolutionise the R&D tax credit industry.

“As well as automating much of the claims process for firms, made.simplr is also a fantastic business intelligence tool,” explained Sarah.

“It helps accountancy firms and businesses to assess the performance of the claims they are making and demonstrate their value to others.”

Sarah and the team at made.simplr understands that automation is the key to innovation within the accountancy profession and they believe that during challenging times such as these it can help firms to expand their service offering beyond the confines of their traditional market.

“More and more accountancy firms are thinking big and many will have already become reliant on cloud accounting solutions such as made.simplr due to factors such as remote working and the introduction of Government initiatives, such as Making Tax Digital,” added Sarah.

“Our software simply and efficiently allows firms to tap into an area that otherwise may not be available to them due to the limited number of existing cost-effective solutions out there.”

To find out more about made.simplr and how it can help accountancy firms and businesses, book a demo today!

Up and coming online accountancy software provider made.simplr has won new funding from the Government-backed Innovate UK programme designed to fast-track the development of innovations borne out of the Coronavirus crisis.

The company, which has developed software designed specifically to assist accountants and finance officers with R&D tax credits, is among a number of innovative businesses selected for the Fast Start Competition.

This programme is offering £40 million of Government investment to drive forward new technological advances that are helping businesses during the current crisis.

The made.simplr application is entirely based on the cloud and allows accountants to remotely access the information they need to make a claim.

Designed by the team at Kapitalise, who have a background in R&D funding and projects across Europe, it is anticipated to be the next big innovation in automation for the accountancy profession, which will help firms to navigate the complexities of R&D tax credits, improve businesses’ access to the tax relief and increase revenues for users.

Sarah Malter, Managing Director at Kapitalise, said: “We are really excited to receive this funding from Innovate UK as it will help us to invest further in the technology behind Made.Simplr and push this out to a wider pool of accountancy firms.

“We strongly believe that our systems have the potential to innovate the way that R&D and the tax reliefs connected to it are managed in the UK and around the world. Our application makes it easier and quicker to process claims and the fact that it can all be done remotely means that staff can stay safe, while still delivering a high level of service to clients.”

The funding made available to Made.Simplr is part of a £211 million government support package to drive forward business-led innovation, announced by the Chancellor on 20 April 2020 in response to the current outbreak.

“The UK accountancy profession is at a real turning point as it moves towards automation to drive improvements in existing services,” said Sarah.

“We are really excited to be a part of this and we are glad that this funding from Innovate UK via the Fast Start Competition scheme will help us to accelerate our plans to roll out our systems to more firms.” To find out more about made.simplr, book a demo now!