Overview

BDO’s innovation leaders developed a full end-to-end digital solution for benchmarking and risk profiling claims proposed or submitted for the UK’s R&D tax relief programme.

Challenge

Many companies claim R&D credits, however, they are often unaware of their risk profile or how their claims compare to their competitors. The existing process of using individual subject matter experts was time-consuming and slow, given the high levels of skills and experience required to make each decision.BDO uncovered an opportunity to improve efficiency and turn its expertise in this area into a digital service.

Solution

Rainbird Infer was used to model R&D claims using a proprietary data-model that focused on company size and industry sector.The tool produces a priority rating score, estimates claim benefit, risk and opportunities, and compares the results to claimants of similar size and industry.The use of Rainbird provides greater insight and improves client experience as a result of the technology performing a significant portion of the work with accuracy and speed. It also allows BDO to scale the service and frees its people to work on advising clients.

Business outcome

As a result of BDO’s innovation, powered by Rainbird technology, BDO’s savings are in the region of at least half a working day per assessment. It also allows our people to spend more time with clients on the results of the assessment and agreeing next steps, where sensible.BDO has accessed new clients and generated new revenue, with the digital service being a major contributor to this success.The Rainbird-powered tool stands out in the marketplace as innovative and novel with no competitors of note.BDO is selling in their online store here.