WOUNDCHEK™ Laboratories develop novel wound diagnostic products to help improve outcomes in wound care. They launched the world’s first and only point of care test to detect EPA (elevated protease activity) in chronic wounds in 2012, and over the past several years has become a recognised leader in wound diagnostics.

Seymour Taylor have been completing R&D tax credits for Woundchek for a number of years. The team liaise with the CFO at each year end to discuss whether projects from the prior year are ongoing. The team obtain a detailed nominal ledger from the client and begin analysis work on expenditure ensuring they are clear as to what it relates to. For Woundchek the draft workings for R&D are based on both the SME and large scheme as there are multiple projects covering both schemes. Our team liaise with the CFO over the claim and run through the eligibility. We work with the company to prepare the justification report and pass to the CFO at Woundchek for review. After this is agreed they will prepare the tax computation and liaise with HMRC regarding the refund.

“I approached Seymour Taylor back in 2016 about Research and Development tax credits to see whether they could help us. The team at Seymour Taylor weren’t put off by the technical nature of the work that Woundchek did and they were able to manage the work at a reasonable cost. It was Seymour Taylor’s open approach plus their reasonable billing rates that gave me the confidence to work with them on the R&D tax credits. As this was a new area to us, I wasn’t sure at the beginning how much money we would get so this was an important factor I needed to take into account when discussing the service with Seymour Taylor.

The only funds we get are purely through shareholders and grants so the R&D tax credits make a huge difference to our business. We have to raise significant funds in order to be able to run the required clinical trials enabling us to prove our claims to the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) in the US and the legal requirements of the CE European Marking system. These trials enable us to get regulatory clearance and hence market the products in those countries. The extra funds have assisted us to do these trials. Seymour Taylor help us to prepare our RDEC claim on the basis that we receive two grants from Innovate UK and Invest Northern Ireland.

The R&D tax support I get from Seymour Taylor has been great. I have known and worked with Rachel Pugh and Liza Rowles for a number of years now and they are always timely in their responses to my questions. I like working with Seymour Taylor because I can always pick up the phone and contact them and get immediate advice or speak to someone who I can direct my question to.

I would recommend working with Seymour Taylor on the R&D tax credits as they are able to manage complex technical products such as our own. They have a very honest and open approach and are responsive, which I feel is important for this area.

They also have a local feel and approach and charge me a reasonable rate for the work that they do”

Malcolm Williams, Chief Financial Officer – Woundchek

ETLogic Ltd provide expertise in electronic trading systems used by investment banks and price makers in government bonds, credit bonds, swaps and other derivatives. These systems connect to electronic RFQ negotiation venues such as Bloomberg, Tradeweb, MarketAxess and Bondvision, and to the order matching venues such as MTS, and apply rules such as client tiering, price contributions logic, and auto-negotiation logic.

The team at Seymour Taylor prepare the year end accounts for the client and discuss with them any current projects and whether any historic projects have changed in scope or ceased for R&D. Once the team have finalised the accounts they then review the client’s expenditure during the year for items that may be qualifying expenditure. Our team liaise with ETLogic as to which projects the expenditure relates to. Our R&D experts then draft the workings under the SME scheme and review the associated justification report. Directors within our business will review the report before sending onto the client with any questions we may have. Once the team at ETLogic are happy with the report we will make any necessary changes before finalising the tax computations and then we will submit it to HMRC.

“Being able to hand over the R&D tax relief claims to Seymour Taylor to run with, frees up our time to focus on our business”

“As a business we were looking for a new accountant who could do both our accounts work plus R&D.

Seymour Taylor were able to offer the whole package of services we wanted and were more cost effective. They offered a fixed price for the R&D work whereas previously we had paid 20-22% of the tax relief that we received to the accountant doing the R&D tax work for us.

Seymour Taylor had a history of R&D tax relief work which was reassuring as we wanted to make sure the R&D claim went through smoothly as we didn’t want to do it all ourselves. We felt they offered a more personal service compared to other firms which also appealed to us.

Whilst initially the information we provided for the R&D claims was quite time consuming now we have a structure in place with Seymour Taylor where we just have to make tweaks to the information and update it yearly, so that it continues to be relevant and applicable to the work we are doing.

The advantages the R&D tax relief brings is that it allows you to invest more in R&D as you get some of the money back. Without the R&D tax refund we wouldn’t be able to do as much Research and Development. Therefore it allows ETLogic to be more innovative and to invest further in our business.

We find it easy to work with Seymour Taylor. They are always available, respond to calls and emails. Communication has always been good between us. There is a collaborative approach between our two companies which is important as R&D is not something you can just hand over without any input so it is important that you work together in conjunction to achieve the end goal.”

Stephen McDermott, Director – ETLogic