Here at Fullstack, we often get asked whether it is compulsory to have your R&D Tax compliance and Tax Accounting or Bookkeeping work done by the same company. Whilst this is not a must, there are several reasons why combining these services is a good idea. In the following article, we discuss the major benefits of doing this.
Efficiency and Timeliness
Bringing these services together will allow your accountant and R&D Tax consultant to coordinate on certain matters including finalisation of tax accounts, thereby allowing a swift and timely preparation of the R&D Tax Schedule and receipt of your R&D refund.
Certain issues or treatment of expenses that require communication between the various teams can be resolved more easily having everything under one roof, thereby saving time which you may be paying for.
Bundled Pricing
Typically, the more services you bring under the one roof, the better pricing structures you may be offered. Not only will you be paying less due to discounts from bundled pricing, but efficiencies will also occur which means lower costs under hourly rate agreements.
Opportunities to Increase Your R&D Claim
Whilst we can’t artificially increase the size of your R&D expenditure, with a bit of forward planning there may be opportunities to better identify R&D costs and increase the eligibility of certain items. For example, coordination between the R&D and bookkeeping team could alert you to make sure you pay R&D related associates and superannuation before the end of the financial year, thereby allowing additional notional deductions under the R&D Tax claim.
Holistic Services and Advice
The more functions you bring together, the more communication is possible, thereby increasing overall familiarity with the business and enhancing opportunities to provide better advice. Accountants are increasingly becoming much more than bean counters and the good ones are transitioning to providing much more forward-looking advice.
Regular communication between your various advisors will uncover greater opportunities to help you grow and succeed, whether that is in the form of a heads-up and assistance with various grants and incentives (e.g. EMDG, ESIC), identifying and providing better ways to manage cash flow or raise capital (e.g. projections, ESOPs, cap table management), group structuring or planning exits – the list goes on.
For these reasons and more, it may be worth seriously considering consolidating the number of advisors you deal with. If you would like to know more about our services, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Fullstack. We’re happy to assist you.
