R&D Claim Reviews and Second Opinions
Written and reviewed by the R&D Tax Accountants editorial team. Last reviewed 8 August 2026.
A review is a smaller piece of work than a claim or a defence, and it is often the one that changes the outcome. We read a claim the way a compliance officer would and tell you where it would not hold.
It is worth doing at two points: before filing, while everything is still fixable, and after a claim has been reduced or rejected, when the question is whether to challenge it.
What a Claim Review Covers
Four things. Whether the right scheme has been applied to the accounting period, which is a computation-invalidating error rather than a rounding one. Whether the costing holds, particularly the staff apportionment and the treatment of external labour. Whether the narrative answers the statutory test rather than describing the product. And whether the procedural steps were completed in the right order.
That last one is worth stating plainly because it is the cheapest failure to avoid and the hardest to recover from. If a claim notification was needed and the window has closed, no amount of technical quality rescues the claim.
Where Filed Claims Turn Out Weak
The pattern is consistent. The narrative describes a commercial achievement, the uncertainty is asserted rather than characterised, and the staff apportionment is a round percentage with nothing behind it. Each is defensible on its own and the combination is what draws a check.
The other recurring finding is external labour claimed at full cost rather than at the restricted rate, which is a visible arithmetic overstatement. The mechanics of that are on the externally provided workers page.
How a Review Is Done
We work from what was filed or is about to be: the narrative, the cost breakdown and its supporting records, the forms, and any HMRC correspondence. We do not rebuild the claim as part of a review, because the point is to tell you what is wrong with it rather than to replace it.
The output is a written note: what would survive a check, what would not, what can still be fixed given where the deadlines sit, and whether we think a reduced or rejected claim is worth challenging. If the answer is that it is not, we say so.
Fees for a Review
A review is quoted as a fixed piece of work, agreed in writing before it starts, and it is deliberately priced below claim preparation because its value is in being cheap enough to be worth doing.
If the review turns into a rebuild or a defence, that is a separate engagement quoted separately, and you decide whether to take it. There is no obligation to move from one to the other, and we will point you back to your existing adviser where the fix is straightforward enough not to need us.