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Vertical Aerospace
Sam Sugden, Financial Controller
Launched in 2016, Vertical Aerospace is one of the world’s leading aerospace manufacturers, designing and building all-electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
Industry
Research & Engineering
Employees
120 (December 2020)
7 compliant claims
Claims completed with EmpowerRDVertical Aerospace’s challenges before and after EmpowerRD
We’ve been supporting Vertical Aerospace with their R&D tax credit claims since 2017, ensuring their complex and growing claims are well taken care of. Our user-friendly platform and expert in-house support have ensured Vertical Aerospace’s claims are optimised and can stand up to HMRC scrutiny. This collaboration allows Vertical Aerospace to focus on revolutionising air travel with electric air taxis.
“EmpowerRD is much more than software. Having an expert team in-house, providing advice and guidance throughout the entire claims process, and always being available to jump on a call, is so important for us”
| Challenges Before EmpowerRD | After EmpowerRD |
|---|---|
| Lack of trustworthy advisors ✘ Difficulty in finding an advisor they could trust to handle their complex R&D tax credit claims effectively. |
Long-term partnership ✔ Since partnering with EmpowerRD in 2017, Vertical Aerospace has consistently relied on our trusted advisory services, highlighting a strong, ongoing relationship. |
| Manual and time-consuming process ✘ Preparing and submitting R&D tax credit claims was a lengthy and cumbersome process, requiring significant manual effort and coordination from the team. |
Growth and scalability ✔ EmpowerRD has supported Vertical Aerospace’s growth, efficiently handling increasingly complex and larger claims over the years. |
| High enquiry rate ✘ The risk of scrutiny from HMRC was high, with the average enquiry rate for claims being 20%, leading to potential delays and complications. |
Centralised claim management ✔ The EmpowerRD platform allows Vertical Aerospace to store all previous claim information and costs in one place, simplifying the process for future claims. |
| Need for expertise in aerospace and manufacturing ✘ Vertical Aerospace required an advisor with specialised knowledge and experience in the aerospace and manufacturing sectors to ensure their claims were fully optimised and compliant. |
Smooth and quick process ✔ EmpowerRD’s team of former HMRC and industry experts, having supported 1,200+ companies across sectors, streamlines processes. This expertise aids Vertical Aerospace in efficiently handling their intricate claims with multiple team members. |
| Inefficient remote collaboration ✘ Coordinating and managing the claim process remotely was challenging, leading to inefficiencies and delays. |
Efficient remote collaboration ✔ EmpowerRD’s platform supports efficient remote collaboration with features like online training, role allocation, and task management, improving coordination for the team based at their Bristol headquarters. |
R&D Activity
Vertical Aerospace is on a mission to revolutionise travel through the creation of electric air taxis. Their flagship aircraft VA-1X is set to be the world’s first all-electric vertical take off and landing aircraft, capable of carrying up to 1 pilot and 4 passengers. Manufacturing is taking place in the UK, with flight testing scheduled for 2021 and commercial flights set to take off in 2024.
Claim History
Vertical Aerospace has worked with EmpowerRD since their first claim via the RDEC scheme in 2017, and haven’t looked back. With their claim size increasing significantly year on year, and their submission becoming more complex, they’ve required an efficient solution and expert team to fully support their scale-up.
“EmpowerRD is much more than software. Having an expert team in-house, providing advice and guidance throughout the entire claims process, and always being available to jump on a call, is so important for us”
Working with EmpowerRD
Vertical Aerospace has continued to work with EmpowerRD for the ease and efficiency of the online platform, combined with the expertise and guidance of the in-house team. For a claim of their size, they trust EmpowerRD to ensure their claim is fully optimised and protected from any scrutiny from HMRC that can come with larger claims.
Despite working remotely from the team of engineers based at their Bristol headquarters, Sam has found it easy to collaborate with the team within the platform:
“One of the things I find most useful is the online training and allocation of roles and tasks. It saves time for the team as they know exactly what they need to do, and as coordinator of the claim I can keep an eye on progress without having to chase anyone – it cuts out the middleman.”
Having the ability to draw on their past claims within the platform has also been incredibly useful for the team for subsequent submissions:
“Being able to re-use past costs and data has made working on claims from one year to the next really easy. Our claim naturally takes longer each year because of its complexity, but as we’ve grown, we’ve been able to use the platform to build on prior years and evolve our claim and narrative.”
Whilst the platform makes the claiming process faster and easier, it’s the specialist guidance, support and feedback from the EmpowerRD team throughout the entire claiming process that really makes the difference to Sam and his team:
“The platform is great but the human expertise layered on top is vital, especially as our claim size has grown. The team are always around to jump on a call and offer advice.”
“Even if we’re not in the middle of a claim, the team have always been there to answer questions from us throughout the year, for anything we need to think about, or factor into our budget and planning ahead of our next submission.”
Talk to an expert
Our clients say
"The online platform made it much easier to co-ordinate between the finance and technical teams."
“EmpowerRD is doing R&D claims the way everyone should be doing it. They absolutely exceeded our expectations and are now one of our long term partners.”
“I was looking for a specialist with a rigorous platform that could handle a complex R&D tax credit claim, because of our grant. EmpowerRD came up on top.”
“Whilst the platform was a real asset for us, the best thing was the support we received. We always had a client success manager on the other end. If we had any questions or concerns, we could use the chatbot, and our client success manager was there to help. It was a breeze; really good support throughout.”
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