Long Winded Interviews are Soon to Become a Thing of the Past for Middle Managers and R&D Consultants.
Laurence Levis, eng., Automation Engineer at SHAIN.AI, demonstrates how Artificial Intelligence will soon be conducting Technical R&D Interviews.
Over 30 countries in the OECD offer Research and Development Tax credits to boost the technological advancement of their industries. Almost all R&D Tax Credits globally are based on an expense recovery program defined by eligible technical or technological activities. The expenses associated with the eligible activities are claimable for R&D tax credits provided that technical evidence in the form of contemporaneous or nexus support documents are produced during the evolution of the R&D work. The technical interview represents a key activity in preparing and supporting an R&D Tax credit claim. Technical interviews are conducted by middle managers or consultants, primarily with technical staff performing the R&D work. The objective is to pinpoint and extract technical information about the R&D activity details.
A Critical Component of the SR&ED Claim Process:
The technical interview is a critical component of an SR&ED Tax credit claim. If misguided, this can cause poorly prepared and improperly supported R&D claims which often are quickly scrutinized and rejected by government authorities. If the Technical interview is not managed cohesively, complete claims can be lost by missing the mark on identifying correct eligible activities or by collecting improperly supported evidence of work.
Requires Years of Experience:
Conducting a well constructed technical interview requires many years of experience, typically from engineers with considerable knowledge in the target sector. To lead a technical interview, the interviewer must be able to pinpoint the SR&ED activities in short discussion timeframes and relate them to the tax code.
Requires Long Drawn-Out Discussions:
Grasping the technical concepts quickly is an important part of the process. Middle managers and consultants are continuously faced with time constraints as the technical interview requires face to face meetings, scheduling and travel, and is conducted by verbal discussions. This is a long, drawn out process that is met with perpetual time pressures. Steering a technical interview in the wrong direction results in poorly prepared claims with substantial lost time.
Artificial Intelligence is a Game Changer:
The technical interview process is the target of automation as this activity is highly manual and ripe for a major transformation. The interview techniques adapted by the most astute technical interviewers can be mapped onto an A.I. Algorithm. The A.I. algorithms apply natural language processing to engage in a natural discussion with the technical staff. The A.I. can be almost indistinguishable from a human interviewer, a detailed draft is created and provided to middle managers and consultants. This saves countless hours of tedious repetitive interview work, which is now replaceable by innovative and meaningful work.
A.I. Brings Enormous Benefits to Companies, Managers & Consultants:
Automating the technical interview by A.I. enables companies and their internal managers to produce compliant support documents without having to assign additional human resources. Capturing the R&D work by A.I. creates digital content that is instantly analyzed, revealing new knowledge to the team, eliminating the need to sift through dormant excel sheets and producing natural language technical reports. Companies can reinvest these enormous time savings into core R&D work rather than into bureaucratic paper work.
The R&D Tax Credit consulting industry is being transformed globally by the elimination of human dialogue technical interviews, reducing a large part of the work load by lower cost automated A.I. systems. The impact is far reaching since A.I. systems can grow quickly to support an expanding, eliminating the need to continuously hire additional staff at multiple locations. Most importantly, government compliant documents are produced which increases the likelihood of protecting the claimant’s R&D Tax Credits. Consultants can reinvest their time savings by focusing on customer relations and higher level consulting rather than on tedious paperwork.
For more information on conducting Technical Interviews by A.I. Systems, visit SHAIN’s Technical Interviews
If you are an R&D Consultant interested in Partnership programs, visit SHAIN’s Partnership Programs for R&D Consultants.
If you are an Accountant interested in exploring Partnership programs, visit SHAIN’s Partnership Programs for Accountants.