SaaS · 🇦🇺 Australia
An R&D claim the records could not support
A Sydney SaaS company claiming the R&D tax incentive had no contemporaneous record tying spend to eligible activity.
Sydney SaaS, 16 staff, R&D claimant. Client identity withheld — we publish names only with written permission, so this engagement is described by its shape rather than by who it was.
16
Staff time-tracked to activity
12
Months of records rebuilt
Substantiated
Claim position
The situation
- The company claimed the R&D tax incentive annually, assembling the claim retrospectively each year.
- Development spend was in a single account with no split between eligible and ineligible activity.
What we found
- No contemporaneous records tying salary cost to eligible R&D activity, which is what substantiates a claim.
- Contractor spend not separated between development and general engineering support.
- Cloud infrastructure costs claimed in full despite supporting production workloads too.
What we did
- Introduced activity-level time capture mapped to the claim categories.
- Split contractor and infrastructure spend between eligible and ineligible on a documented basis.
- Rebuilt twelve months of records to the standard the claim requires.
The outcome
- The claim is now substantiated by contemporaneous records rather than reconstructed after year end.
- The claimable amount was lower than previously claimed, which is the honest position.
What we'd flag
Properly separating eligible spend reduced the claim. Previous claims had been more generous than the records could defend.
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