Most clients will instinctively come to their accountant for accounts and tax advice. They don’t necessarily know what this ‘tax advice’ means, but in the vast majority of instances, this is what clients would say. By not delivering R&D Tax Relief claims to your clients, or at least nudging them to look into it, you are giving the impression you either (1) don’t know what it is, or (2) you can’t do it. Whatever the perception, it’s not a good look. This is a risk.
Larger accountancy firms use tax advice as their main business development. They will be approaching your best clients advising them they can do everything under one roof. Clients actually like this. They don’t want to deal with too many advisors.
And without a doubt, other R&D providers will be approaching your clients and trying to persuade them across too. That piece of tax advice your client is receiving is now completely out of your control.
Now, you might be thinking, ‘I’m cool with that, as long my client is getting the money back into their business’. Well we’re not cool with that. As their accountant, to deliver a complete service, we believe that you need to be in the driving seat of their tax and accounting needs. It’s an area of tax consultancy and therefore in our view it should be under your control.
If this is you, and you have a client doing R&D somewhere else, or you’re not offering this service to your clients, here’s some tips and tricks to shift some of the roadblocks:
My client says they’re happy where they are
Wrong. They think they are.
No one really likes change all that much, we’re creatures of habit after all. But this could be impacting their claim.
TIP: Ask the client what their current provider does each year for their claim. Do they review their business activities afresh? Even worse, do they put it back on the client to do this? If there is even a sniff of a copy and paste job, or an inefficient process that’s your way in.
There’s an age-old saying you might know, ‘The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.’ Well, this time we guarantee it absolutely is.
My client is worried/uncomfortable about the hassle switching
We’d probably feel the same!
The answer. It’s simple. Ask your client how much time they have to spend on their R&D claim at the moment. If it is anything longer than 1-2 hours, they are doing too much of the work themselves.
Through your white-labelled R&D partnership with us, you will save them time on their claim. Fact.
TIP: Go to the download area and check out our process. You’ll see the client has very little to do, share this with your client & help them recognise the time they could get back.
I’ve never delivered an R&D claim before & I don’t have a clue
That’s totally fine, you don’t need to be an expert.
That’s what we are here for. We can jump on the phone with your client from the start, as your R&D Consultant – the service can be entirely white-labelled, meaning technically you are the expert! Expertise box ticked. What we can also do is help you get a level of confidence very quickly to approach the topic of R&D with a client.
Go to the download area and check out ‘What is R&D Tax Relief’, to get up to speed on the basics.
I don’t have time to upskill & start offering R&D claims to my clients
You don’t need time, that’s what we’re for.
We literally have everything ready for you, you don’t really have to do anything! We have the delivery completely covered from start to finish, you can even white label the service so the client doesn’t experience a change in service. You can sit back and watch the fees come in, or just join us for the kickstart call and we can do the rest.
Don’t let some other provider benefit from what could be coming into your business.
Let clients know about your service today using our template blog & email.
How do I have conversations about R&D?
The truth is you don’t need to be able to have an in-depth conversation about R&D.
We have a download area with the specific resources you’d need to get through a conversation on R&D. All you need to do is:
(1) find out if your client does/is doing R&D Tax Claims already, and
(2) use our resources, to show how different it could be claiming with you
Go to the download area and check out ‘How we’re different’, to get confident.
How do I come across as an expert in my communications?
Through the support we give you.
You’ll have a two-person designated support team for technical and business development – who are enjoyable to work with. Plus, access to all the templates, content, and marketing you’ll need. We’ll handle most of the communications with the client for you and through our white-label service, your business still be seen as the experts.
If you feel like there is something you need, tell us – we’ll make it!
How do I know a good job is being done?
This is about picking the right partner to deliver your R&D.With us, you’ll be partnering with friendly, human, skilled and passionate people who genuinely enjoy what they do. At the end of each claim, we offer an end of service feedback call, where we’ll contact the client to find out about their experience.
We always share the feedback with you, you can even join us! But the best bit…we’ll take that feedback and create a case study for you, on your brand, to use in your marketing.
Be bold. Their your clients.
If you’ve held back on talking R&D with clients, now you have a service that can give you the confidence to do something. Working together with us, you can now offer a truly white-labelled R&D Service to your clients – book a call and we’ll talk you through how it can work.