Finance Documents: Which Financial Documents are Required for Your R&D Claim?

To ensure a successful R&D claim, you will need to have prepared some of your financial documents beforehand.

With the Additional Information Form now being required for all R&D claims, this has also impacted when you need to file your financial documents.

For 'EmpowerRD Express' submissions, you will need the following financial documents:

CT600 (Company Tax Return).
Company accounts.
Corporation Tax computations.

In the event of your CT600 not being filed yet, you can upload your finalised CT600 draft - we can use this to finalise the figures.

What is a CT600?

The CT600 is the Company Tax Return for your claim period. It is a standardised format, so it will always be the green form that contains your company information (including your Unique Taxpayer Reference/UTR, accounting period and tax details). If you had an extended accounting period, you should have two CT600s to cover the entire accounting period.

Before the 8th of August 2023 changes, you could file your CT600 before the claim submission. However, now all claimants must submit the Additional Information Form prior to the CT600 being filed. Failure to do so will result in HMRC removing your R&D claim from your company's CT600. For now, you can upload your draft CT600 if you haven't finalised it.

If you have already filed your CT600, you can still file a claim but you will need to submit an amended CT600; this will essentially 'override' your previous CT600. You will still need to submit the Additional Information Form beforehand. In this case, you will need to upload your original CT600 to the platform.

⚠️ If you have already submitted the original CT600 and have included the R&D figures without submitting the Additional Information Form first, HMRC will remove the R&D claim from your CT600 and they will send you a letter to confirm its rejection.

More information regarding the new claims submission process can be found here.

What are company accounts?

The company accounts contain the financial figures for your accounting period. This should include your 'Profit and Loss' statement and full balance sheet. If you are a small company, your company accounts may be made up of 'micro accounts'.

The figures in these accounts should reconcile with the figures included in the 'Costs' section. You will need to upload these to the platform so we can do this. If you haven't finalised your company accounts yet, you can upload the draft format for now.

⬆️ An example of a balance sheet as part of the full company accounts

What are Corporation Tax computations?

Corporation Tax computations are essentially a breakdown of your Corporation Tax liability for your accounting period. Even if your Corporation Tax is £0, you should still have tax computations to show this.

There is no standardised format for tax computations. For example, some tax computations may be attached to the CT600 or company accounts whereas others are not. However, tax computations always show "Profits chargeable to Corporation Tax" alongside the figures.

⬆️ An example of tax computations

What are my options for a claim submission?

For claim submissions, there are a couple of options:

📄 EmpowerRD Express Submission

From the 8th of August 2023, you will need to submit the Additional Information Form prior to submitting the CT600. We will prepare and submit the Additional Information Form for you and then you can file the CT600.

If you need some time to finalise your financial documents, it is best to work with your claim manager on timescales so we can manage the claim accordingly.

If you have already submitted your CT600, you can still proceed with the claim; we will just need to file an amended CT600, this will essentially 'override' the previous CT600.

If the original CT600 already contains the R&D claim, HMRC will reject it and they will send you a letter to confirm this.

📄 Submit Yourself

If you want to submit your Additional Information Form and financial documents, you will need to let us know that you want to submit these yourself.

This means we will prepare the Additional Information Form for you and when ready, we will send it to you for your approval. Once approved, we will submit the Additional Information Form for you; you will then be notified to submit your CT600.

When choosing this option, please consider that the person preparing and filing the financial documents and claim should be familiar with this process. With this in mind, we would highly recommend using an accountant to do this.

Question not answered?

Contact us via email at claims@empowerrd.com or alternatively, message us via the live chat.

Finance Documents: Which Financial Documents are Required for Your R&D Claim?

This article outlines which financial documents are required for a successful R&D claim, when you need to submit these and what your options are for claim submissions with EmpowerRD.