WhisperClaims brings Inglis Chartered Accountants into the R&D world

Supporting a range of clients with services from bookkeeping, payroll and auditing to personal and business tax and diagnostic tax reviews, Inglis Chartered Accountants entered the world of R&D claims as an extension of its successful tax practice.

Senior Accountant, Lawrence McClelland, oversees the Accounts and Tax department, putting him at the heart of the firm’s R&D offering.

Enabling his team to take on additional tax functions and ensure a seamless service to clients, he took the lead in introducing WhisperClaims to the firm – with impressive results in the early days of our solution’s adoption.

Enhancing client service

Not initially an R&D-focused practice, Lawrence took the step towards WhisperClaims in a bid to offer clients a tightly managed and compliant service.

“We had a number of clients having their claims done by boutique R&D specialists, but they didn’t get involved with any of their other tax work. While the majority were great, we did see some coming back which were spurious or not as focused on R&D as they could have been.

“At the same time, we saw HMRC cracking down on compliance, so we wanted to set ourselves apart in terms of the claims we accept from clients.”

Having previously turned to WhisperClaims for ad hoc resources, Lawrence was keen to embrace its software in order to make submitting claims easier, faster and more accurate, with around 10 per year requiring significant attention from his team.

“WhisperClaims helps us to enhance our USP of taking only the soundest R&D claims.

“One of the great things about the software is that we can access an ‘opinion service’ to assess the viability of a claim before we start collating information, or even before a client starts their project.

“After chatting with the WhisperClaims’ extremely knowledgeable team, we identified an effective route forward in asking project leaders to write up an outline so that we can decide, with the help of WhisperClaims, whether it would be a valid claim.”

Getting to know the software

For the needs of Lawrence’s team, WhisperClaims fit the bill perfectly – enhancing client communication and ease of access to excellent R&D tax services.

“We tend to submit our claims in batches and there are certain times of the year where they are more popular,” explained Lawrence.

“This makes these times particularly busy for our team, which makes the collaboration tool highly useful for us.

“Having gotten to know it in more depth, we’ll definitely be putting this to good use when we next submit R&D claims.

“WhisperClaims makes it so easy for our team and our clients to work together to submit all the information that HMRC needs. They know that HMRC wants to see for these claims and, even down to the wording of questions for clients, WhisperClaims does a grand job of providing a clear and intuitive pathway to submitting accurate claims.

Compliance at the core

Eager to stress compliance with HMRC’s changing regulations around R&D tax relief claims, Lawrence and his team draw confidence from WhisperClaims and its approach to staying updated.

“It really gives you confidence as an agent, knowing that the WhisperClaims team are switched on and prioritising compliance.

“They keep us up to date with regulation changes which lets us know that we can place our trust, and that of our clients, in the WhisperClaims team.”

Looking to the future, Lawrence recognises the increasing emphasis that some clients are placing on R&D claims.

“As a growing practice, we’re reaching a point where we can take on new R&D work – and it regularly comes up in meetings with new clients! There is significant demand for it from some sectors, and WhisperClaims is going to be the way forward for us in terms of setting a clear fee structure and onboarding new R&D clients.

Summing up his team’s experience with WhisperClaims, Lawrence said:

“It’s so easy to use, even for those that don’t do R&D claims on a daily basis. I genuinely think that it is brilliant.”