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Ashton & Carrington
R&D · ERIS

£23,338 in cash, for a two-person team building the impossible.

How a small, loss-making AI company turned a year of hard engineering into a payable cash credit under Enhanced R&D Intensive Support.

£86,534
Qualifying R&D expenditure
£160,953
Enhanced expenditure (186%)
up to £23,338
Payable cash credit

The engagement

A two-person AI company building financial intelligence software spent the year on four projects beyond published knowledge: orchestrating multiple AI agents reliably over shared infrastructure; a retrieval architecture where every generated statement traced back to its source; dynamic risk scoring reconciling credit data with AI-derived signals; and an evaluation framework for systems that never answer the same way twice. To the accounts it looked like two salaries. Under the R&D rules, most of it qualified.

Our approach

  • Project-by-project technical narratives built from engineer interviews
  • Advance and uncertainty evidenced against the DSIT Guidelines
  • R&D intensity condition and SME status tested and documented
  • Mandatory Additional Information Form prepared and filed

The result

Staffing costs (qualifying proportion)
£81,351
Software licences
£4,841
Qualifying admin
£341
Total qualifying R&D expenditure
£86,534

How the credit is calculated

£86,534 × 186% × 14.5% = £23,338

Qualifying spend plus the 86% additional deduction, surrendered for the 14.5% ERIS payable credit. Subject to the final loss position and the PAYE/NIC cap.

A real client engagement, anonymised to protect confidentiality. Figures do not constitute tax advice; outcomes depend on individual circumstances.

Two people, no profit, and a five-figure cheque from HMRC, because the work qualified and this time someone checked.

More outcomes

Related case studies.

Real client engagements, anonymised to protect confidentiality. Figures do not constitute tax advice; outcomes depend on individual circumstances.

Bijan Mohajer

Bijan Mohajer, Partner

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