HMRC has written about your R&D claim.

Not necessarily. A letter might be a request for information as part of a compliance check, a general letter sent to many companies, or the formal opening of an enquiry. They need different responses. Send us the letter and we will tell you which it is, what it asks for and when a reply is due, before anything goes back to HMRC.

The letter sets the date, and that date is the only one that counts. Do not assume there is slack. Tell us the date when you send the letter, and we will plan the response backwards from it. If the date cannot be met properly, we will ask HMRC for more time before it passes, not after.

You can, and it is far better to ask early, with a clear reason, than to miss the date. HMRC decides whether to agree. We make the request for you and set out what will be provided and when. A short, reasoned request for time to gather evidence properly is generally received better than a late or incomplete reply.

Send what is asked for, accurately, and no more than is relevant. We review each item before it goes. Sometimes a request is wider than it needs to be, and a sensible reading is agreed with HMRC. What you must not do is send anything you have not checked: an incorrect document is hard to take back.

The technical report and project descriptions, the additional information form, payroll and time records, invoices for subcontractors and consumables, software and cloud costs, and any emails or notes recording the technical work as it happened. Contemporary records carry more weight than anything written afterwards. We tell you what is likely to be needed as soon as we have read the letter.

A senior person to authorise us and take decisions, someone from finance who can explain the figures, and the technical lead who understood the uncertainty. Keep the group small and tell them not to discuss the claim with HMRC directly. We coordinate the contact, so HMRC hears a consistent account from everyone.

Typically, an HMRC officer asks questions about specific projects and costs, and the people who did the work explain what they did and why. We agree the topics beforehand, prepare the people to answer clearly, attend with them and follow up in writing so the record is accurate. A meeting is a chance to put the technical case in person.

Usually, yes, if HMRC asks to speak to the people who did the work. The technical lead is best placed to explain the uncertainty and how it was resolved. We prepare them first, explaining what to expect and how to give short, accurate answers. They do not need to attend every contact, and we say when they are needed.

Withdrawal does not make a problem go away, and it can raise new questions. If the claim is sound, we defend it. If the review shows part of it was overstated, the right route is usually to correct it, and telling HMRC unprompted generally leads to lower penalties. We advise on the facts before you decide anything.

It happens, and the answer is clear explanation, not frustration. We help put the technical case in plain terms, using the Government's guidelines as the framework, with diagrams or test records where they help. If a point turns on technical judgement, we make sure the person who made it is able to explain it.

There are no guarantees, but good signs are questions that narrow rather than widen, HMRC accepting explanations supported by records, and requests that become specific. Poor signs are repeated requests for the same information or questions about unrelated periods. We tell you how we read the correspondence as it goes.

Do not delete or tidy records, do not rewrite documents after the event, do not contact HMRC informally, and do not discuss the enquiry with the previous adviser until we have spoken. Do not make new claims in the same style without advice. Keep everything, send it to us and let us guide the contact.

HMRC's figures for 2023-24 show 77% of checks led to an adjustment and 89% of settled checks were agreed. Outcomes range from no change to a partial adjustment to a full rejection, depending on the facts. Our job is to get the best supportable outcome. We tell you, early, how strong the claim looks.

It can. HMRC may ask about other periods, especially if the same approach was used. We review neighbouring claims early, so we know the answer before HMRC asks about another year. If another period has the same weakness, we discuss with you whether it should be corrected, because that affects penalties.

Tell us at once. We look for the same information in other places, such as email, project tools, supplier statements and payroll, and we say honestly what cannot be shown. It is better to explain a gap than to hand over a reconstruction dressed as the original. We help you decide what to say.

We check the outcome against the closure notice and the figures, advise on whether to accept it, and then use the lessons: better records, a clearer project selection and, where needed, a review of later claims. A closed enquiry is the best time to fix the process, because the weaknesses have just been exposed.