R&D tax credit studies for CPA firms
Keep the relationship, drop the production burden. Your firm brings the client and the judgment about their return; we build the §41 study underneath it - the component analysis, the narratives, the QRE workpapers and the Form 6765 package - and your reviewer signs off before anything reaches your client. You file the return. We never do.
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One portal, every client engagement
For CPA and tax firms running R&D studies for their own clients with Ricerca. It is the same platform our own R&D experts work in, with your firm in the reviewer’s seat rather than a monthly status call.
Referring a study out usually means losing sight of it: you find out what was claimed when the workpapers arrive, and you are asked to file a number you did not watch being built. A firm engagement inverts that. The computation, the narratives and the open questions are visible to your team the whole way through, and the study cannot be issued to your client until your firm has reviewed it.
- Manage every client engagement from one dashboard
- Invite client contacts and track outstanding requests
- Review computations and deliverables before they are issued
- Pull filing-ready figures and forms for the return
The firm portal is a licensed tenant of the Ricerca platform. Access, seats and the scope of each engagement are set in your agreement with us.
What your team actually sees
Three screens from the platform, on synthetic study data. These are the firm-side views: the board your engagements sit on, the workbench your reviewer works in, and the delivery step that puts documents in front of your client.
Every client engagement on one board
Each client’s studies, what stage each one is at, and what is outstanding - including the requests sitting with the client rather than with you. The ranked list above the board answers the only question a partner asks on a Monday: which of these needs me today.
The workbench your reviewer works in
Not a PDF and a phone call. Every check the study has to clear before it can be finalized is listed, in phases, with its state and the record behind it. A check that blocks finalization says so, and says what would clear it. Your reviewer can open the evidence for any figure without asking anyone for it.
Deliverables issued under your review
Generating a document, finalizing it and issuing it to the client are three separate acts, in that order, and the platform enforces the order. Superseded versions stay on the record rather than disappearing, so a year later you can still answer what your client was given and when.
Who does what, precisely
The roles are legally distinct, so it is worth being exact about them. Ricerca is an R&D tax credit specialist, not a licensed CPA firm, and it does not sign returns or represent anyone before the IRS.
| Stage of the study | Ricerca platform and R&D experts | Your firm |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Scopes the study with your team: entity, tax years, and the business components in play. | Owns the client relationship and decides which clients go into a study. |
| Intake and data | Pulls payroll, general-ledger and engineering activity through read-only connectors, reconciles it, and says what is missing. | Introduces the client contacts and tells us who owns the technical work. |
| Technical narratives | Drafts a narrative for each business component against the four-part test, then an R&D expert reviews it before you see it. | Reads the drafts and corrects the facts only your team and your client know. |
| Computation | Computes the Regular Credit and the ASC on the same QRE base and shows the arithmetic, line by line. | Sets the positions you want computed, including the §280C(c) posture and any elections. |
| Review and sign-off | Holds the study until every blocking check is cleared. No study auto-issues. | Reviews the computations and deliverables in the portal before anything is issued. |
| Deliverables | Issues the study report, QRE workpapers, Form 6765 package and audit file, with every version on the record. | Pulls filing-ready figures and forms for the return. |
| Filing | Does not sign or file the return, and does not hold itself out as your client’s preparer. | Signs and files the return. |
| Examination of the R&D claim | Prepares the response, provides the documentation requested, and defends the technical position of the study under Audit Protection. | Represents the client before the examiner where representation is needed, under Circular 230, or arranges a practitioner who does. |
On confidentiality. Because a study is built from tax-return information, taxpayer-identifying data is redacted automatically before anything reaches an AI model - IRC §7216 implemented as a processing step rather than a policy reminder - and production AI calls route exclusively through enterprise endpoints. We will walk your risk partner through the rest of it; see security.
Questions tax partners ask first
Answered the same way here as everywhere else on this site: precisely, and with the limits stated.
Do you replace our firm as the client’s CPA or tax preparer?
Can our reviewer see the work before it goes to the client?
Who represents our client if the IRS examines the R&D credit?
How is our client’s tax-return information handled?
What does it cost, and how is a firm engagement quoted?
Next: see a sample study for what your client receives, or how a study is built for the production detail behind it.