Guild

R&D Activity

Guild is an independent tech business with a mission to become the messaging app of choice for professionals around the world. Their platform is purpose-built for professionals and businesses, requiring complex tech infrastructure and substantial UX investment.

Claim History

Guild previously claimed with a traditional R&D provider. They switched to EmpowerRD to save significantly on fees, and because of the confidence they had in the expertise and guidance of the in-house team to ensure their claim would be optimised and avoid any HMRC scrutiny:

“EmpowerRD challenges us on our claim to make sure we’re getting the details right – maximising the value of funds, and avoiding the risk of enquiry.”

Working with EmpowerRD

Guild partners with their accountant to build their claim within the EmpowerRD platform. Their accountant isn’t an R&D specialist, so Ashley is best placed to coordinate the overall project, and build the detailed technical narrative, whilst their accountant solely focuses on inputting the cost data.

Building the technical narrative

The platform makes it easy for Ashley and his tech team to collaborate on building the narrative, and for Ashley as coordinator to oversee everything:

“When it comes to juggling everyone inputting details, the platform does the project management work for me, and the built-in, intuitive tips and benchmarking helps us improve the claim as we go.”

Being able to build on past claims in the platform also makes the process easier year on year for the team: “The platform becomes more of a bonus each year. It really speeds things up to have the template of the last claim to look back on and work with, so we’re not starting from scratch each time!”

EmpowerRD + Accountant

Ashley finds the process of working with his accountant on the claim seamless. He trusts his accountant Imogen to import the cost data, there’s no crossover of responsibilities, and it doesn’t have any impact on his time:

“There’s a clear separation of who does what. Our EmpowerRD account manager works with both of us separately to get things done, so there’s no middleman. There’s a natural handover from me as coordinator of the claim – over to our accountant – who adds the cost data needed to get it over the line”

Guild’s accountant Imogen inputs the costs and does the final submission of the claim. A big benefit of working with EmpowerRD is the guidance she has from the team, up to the point that the claim is ready to submit:

“The benefit of working with EmpowerRD is the coordination the team has with accountants. The EmpowerRD team were so helpful in getting the claim 100% of the way there, guiding me on how to ensure that the CT600, which is needed to submit the claim, was filled out in the correct way – which is expertise I don’t have.”