Research & Developement

Our client was a family-run architectural metalwork business. Whilst they had an excellent reputation in the industry and were often approached by large clients to create ‘statement’ pieces for incorporation within landmark developments, they believed that their approach was simply ‘what we do’ and had not considered any of their work to be Research & Development (R&D).

By spending time with the engineers and designers, we were able look at individual projects and identity areas where ‘what we do’ actually involved creating a product or process which included an element of improvement to those already existing.

Some work included a high degree of uncertainty, but also a large amount of waste in terms of failed prototypes. Examples included testing the shear loadings on cantilevers, degrees of flex across steel spans and methods of affixing the steels that met both the performance and aesthetic requirements of a project. Whilst they had sector specialists working within the team using modern design programmes, the nature of their work required that the theoretical science behind the designs needed to be tested as design failure could have catastrophic implications.

Working with the engineers, we were able to establish which projects were simply the production of good quality pieces and which projects required improvements to what was already available. From this we were able to work with the client’s finance team to understand both the specific project costs plus those consumables and employee costs that were also claimable in relation to the works.

As an SME, they were entitled to claim an additional 130% resulting in an immediate cash payment. Off the back of a successful claim for 2020, we are now undertaking an R&D review for the prior year as well as advising on systems for the current year to help capture accurate costing information.