Heydon Innovation Ltd
is a firm of Chartered
Tax Advisers

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Advisor in Residence
SETsquared Exeter


Heydon Innovation Ltd
Companies House No. 13257892
VAT Registration No. 315 9189 84

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OUR PROCESS

We are proactive, reliable, and efficient Chartered Tax Advisers with experience helping businesses of all sizes claim the R&D tax relief they are entitled to.

Our process is simple and designed to ensure that the time investment required from you is kept to a minimum.

You will not be asked to complete standard templates. You will not have trainees working on your claim. You will receive a service tailored to suit you.

The 10-step process outlined below will give you an idea of how we work. However, each step is modified to suit your individual business needs.

1 First Call

  • Answer any questions you have about us, our process, and R&D tax relief.
  • Talk through some basic information to assess whether your company qualifies.
  • Arrange a time to meet you and discuss the detail and next steps.

2 First Meeting

Every company is different. This short meeting helps us to understand you and your individual business needs. We will agree next steps and ensure that our process is tailored to suit you.

Very importantly, we will also fully brief you on what qualifies for R&D tax relief, in simple terms!

3 Information Collection

We will initially need to collect some basic, readily available financial and project information (e.g. accounts, tax returns, payroll data).

We can work with you, your accountant or an internal finance team to do this. The format of information is not important, we will work with what you have.

4 Analysis

Leave this to us! This will be when we undertake detailed analysis of your company’s financial information. It will form the basis of the R&D claim and help us to identify where your claim can be maximised.

5 Project meeting

This will likely be the most time-consuming part of the entire process for you. It will usually take around 2 hours and will require the key staff involved in your R&D projects. We will need to cover:

  • Specific questions based on our analysis of the company’s financial and project information.
  • The technical detail of a few of your projects (which we will identify with you prior to the meeting).

Although this may sound like a long meeting, it is actually where we can save you the most time. We will collect the information we need through discussion with you/your staff and prepare all documentation on your behalf.

6 Preparation

It will usually take us a couple of weeks to prepare an R&D claim after the project meeting but if there is an urgent deadline, we will find a way to meet it for you.

7 Review

It is important that you understand how we have prepared the R&D claim.

We are happy to meet with you again to talk through our analysis and the claim documentation, or we can discuss it remotely.

After this review, we will finalise the claim documents and ask you to approve them by email.

8 Submission

We can submit an amended tax return to HMRC on your behalf, or, work with your accountant to include our figures on an original tax return.

9 Processing by HMRC

HMRC will usually process an R&D claim within 28 days and make any payment due to you by BACS.

10 Record keeping and future claim optimisation

We will help you to implement or adapt your record keeping processes to robustly support and maximise future R&D claims. This can be done at a convenient time of the year for you and your business.

R&D Tax Relief

A generous tax relief opportunity for innovative and forward thinking companies, creating considerable benefits for shareholders and Directors.

Already Claiming?

The approach taken by advisers differs significantly. This affects the size and accuracy of a claim, along with the time investment required from you.

About Us

We are not what you would expect from 'typical' accountants or tax advisers. Our approach is to keep our ways of working flexible, to fit around our clients.

Heydon Insights

If you are already claiming, we are happy to review your most recent claim for free. We may be able to increase the value of the claim, make the process easier for you, or improve the methodology to make the claim more robust.

All sectors can qualify for R&D tax relief. From software development to manufacturing. Rocket science to construction. Food and drink to engineering.

Your company does not need to be profit making to make an R&D claim. Loss-making SMEs receive a cash payment from HMRC.

Contact us to discuss your claim



An excellent service, making the whole process very straightforward. We recommend and will use again.