Research and Development can be a mainstream service
Business Advisory Services Update
Accountants and bookkeepers who are offering Advisory Services to SME businesses find that there are significant numbers of SMEs who are undertaking Research and Development (R&D) projects.
The expenditure on R&D activities by SMEs has been estimated at $5.9BILLION.
That represents a significant challenge for accountants/bookkeepers to assist clients to understand the rules and to maintain appropriate records, so that the R&D Tax Offset can be claimed in the company’s taxation return.
It all starts with an ‘IDEA’!
The Manager might decide that it’s worth exploring.
The first thing to check is that if the business is a company, and that the expenditure on qualifying R&D items will exceed $20,000 in the financial year (not necessarily on the same project).
It’s a good idea to establish a small team and so begins the ‘Systematic Progression of Work’. This commences with prior art search. Has anyone already researched this idea, published it and potentially taken out a patent? If so, your client will not be able to claim this expenditure as a R&D rebate item.
If your client doesn’t find any prior art, the search mechanism should be documented and then you can proceed.
What are the core activities proposed for the project?
What new knowledge is intended to be produced from this research?
The outcome cannot be known in advance.
Your client needs to identify a ‘hypothesis determination’ that the experiments are going to either prove or disprove.
A R&D plan is a good idea.
The R&D plan should be submitted to the Board of Directors for approval.
It is important that full documentation is prepared and kept for each step of the R&D process.
The Research and Development Product Package, developed by ESS BIZTOOLS, includes step-by-step checklists.
This could be the start of the ‘INNOVATION JOURNEY’ and will offer your ‘talent’ interesting and challenging work.
