Your consultants were helping you get a tax credit for R&D under section 163. That has not changed - not all software development is R&D for section 163 purpose

Your consultants were helping you get a tax credit for R&D under section 163. That has not changed - not all software development is R&D for section 163 purposes, and you still need to justify why you're classifying software development as R&D for section 163. What has changed is section 174 - previously all software development could be expensed (without any justification needed) and now it must be capitalized.