R&D tax credits are a super valuable incentive for innovative companies in the UK. They offer companies the opportunity to recoup some of the money spent on R&D by claiming it back at the end of the accounting period.

However, making your claim requires you to detail exactly how you qualify for the scheme. Getting these details right first time is crucial for a smooth claim that isn’t later subjected to a compliance check. But getting your technical team to describe the work they’ve done over the last year on top of their usual workload, can seem like a Sisyphean task.

HMRC doesn't expect your engineers to become technical writers, and a successful claim doesn't require weeks of your team's time. With the right approach, you can gather everything needed for your R&D tax claim with only one hour of input from each technical lead.

Why does preparing an R&D claim feel so time-consuming?

As you may be aware, all R&D tax credit claims must now include an Additional Information Form (AIF). Beyond contact details and some R&D expenditure analysis, the AIF is where you explain how your projects meet HMRC’s guidelines.

There are four key questions to answer about your R&D project:

• What scientific or technological uncertainty you faced
• Why existing solutions couldn't solve your problem
• What advances you achieved or attempted
• How you approached solving the problem

Answering all of these questions in depth is daunting. Some business leaders delay claims because they can't justify asking already-stretched technical teams for more work. This goes double for companies who are making claims against the deadline and need to look at work that was done more than two years ago. But putting off your claim just makes it harder to gather the relevant information.

When technical staff get involved, they often overthink the task and spend far longer than necessary. There’s a strong desire to “prove” that the work was complicated and intense. They feel they need to outline everything they did in the year, often at a level that is understandable by experts.

The truth is simpler. HMRC wants evidence that your projects meet their definition of R&D. They don't care about prose quality or lengthy explanations. What matters is demonstrating that you sought an advance in science or technology and couldn't easily find a solution. “Dumbing down” your project and keeping to a short word count will actually make your claim stand up to scrutiny better, while making it easier to prepare the claim.

What does HMRC actually expect from a technical report?

HMRC's requirements focus on substance, not style. You're not writing an academic paper. HMRC doesn't expect perfect grammar, extensive background research, or detailed methodology sections. They want clear evidence that your project involved genuine innovation and technical problem-solving.

Your technical leads already know this information. They lived through the challenges. The task isn't creating new knowledge but capturing what they already understand.

HMRC’s reviewers are unlikely to be experts or even familiar with your field of expertise, so using layman’s terms is always best practice. Think a few detailed paragraphs as a rough guide for key sections – enough to be thorough, not so much that key points get lost. You may need to use technical terms, but they should always be explained if they can’t be swapped out.

How can technical teams provide what's needed in their busy day?

The solution is conversation, not composition. Instead of asking technical staff to write everything they did, schedule focussed discussions where they talk through their projects.

Your technical leads can explain their work verbally in far less time than it takes to write it down. A one-hour conversation with each lead, properly structured, will give you everything needed for a robust technical narrative.

During these sessions, someone else captures the information. This could be you, your finance team, or your R&D tax advisor. The technical expert simply answers questions and describes their work as they would to a colleague. If your claim covers multiple projects, schedule separate short sessions rather than one marathon meeting. This keeps discussions centred and prevents information overload.

This approach respects your team's time while ensuring HMRC gets the detail they need. Your engineers spend an hour talking about work they're already familiar with. No homework. No follow-up writing tasks.

Questions you can ask your technical team

Structure your conversation around the core criteria HMRC cares about.

Describing the technical uncertainty

• What didn't you know at the start that would've made this straightforward?
• Where did you get stuck or face unexpected obstacles?
• What assumptions turned out to be wrong?
• What problem were you trying to solve?
• What made this difficult from a technical perspective?
• Why couldn't you simply apply standard methods?

Explaining your approach

• How did you tackle the problem?
• What different methods or solutions did you try?
• What testing or experimentation did you do?
• How did you evaluate whether your approach was working?
• Did anything fail? How did you pivot?

Identifying the advance

• What existing solutions or approaches did you review first?
• What did you achieve that represents progress in your field?
• What can you now do that you couldn't before?
• Even if the project didn't fully succeed, what did you learn that advances knowledge?

These questions naturally prompt the information HMRC requires. Your technical leads won't need preparation. They're simply describing their work.

What simple tools or methods can make this process easier?

You don't need sophisticated systems. Simple approaches work best.

Record the conversation. With permission, use your phone or laptop to capture the discussion. You can review it later to ensure you've captured key points accurately. Many R&D tax advisors will transcribe these recordings directly into technical narratives.

Take bullet-point notes. Don't aim for perfect sentences during the conversation. Capture key phrases, technical terms, and main points. You can expand these later or pass them to whoever's writing the claim.

Use project documentation you already have. Technical leads often mention "we documented this in Jira" or "there's a design document for this". Ask them to share these afterwards. Existing documentation can supplement your conversation notes without requiring additional writing.

Though we never recommend using generative AI tools to prepare a claim, since they don’t have the nuance of your projects nor HMRC’s guidance, they can be a great jumping off point. Depending on the level of sensitive information in the recording, you may be able to use them to review the transcript and organise those thoughts.

What other tools are available to help you claim?

Having the details of your projects together is only half the battle. Preparing a R&D tax relief claim comes with lots of uncertainty. Have you written enough? Is it comprehensible? Have you answered each question fully and equally? Have you submitted all the required forms?

Tax Cloud is the perfect tool for companies short on time but looking to make a robust claim. With character limits, guidance at each stage and the comfort that comes from a report being reviewed by R&D tax experts, you can feel confident in the quality of your claim. Tax Cloud’s experts even handle the submission, from Advance Notification Form to CT600, so you get back to your day-to-day.

Using Tax Cloud is also perfect for large teams, allowing technical and finance personnel to access the portal and add their information separately. With multiple user types, there’s no risk of sensitive data being shared with team members.

Best of all, you can work at your own pace, chipping away at your claim when you can fit the time in.

Key takeaways

HMRC wants evidence of technical uncertainty and innovation. They're not grading your writing quality. Clear but basic explanations of what you tried to solve and how you approached it will satisfy their requirements.

Scheduling short discussions with each technical lead to ask structured questions about their challenges, approaches, and achievements enables even the busiest technical teams to get ahead on their claim.

This approach protects your team's time whilst ensuring your claim is robust and well-documented. Your technical experts spend an hour talking about their innovative work while being able to get back to that as soon as possible.

If you’re interested in seeing how Tax Cloud can build on your team’s claim preparation methodology, get in touch with our friendly team to schedule a free, no-commitment demo.