Tool
Eligibility and documentation checklists
What makes a business eligible, and what evidence a claim needs before an examiner asks for it.
Checklist one
Business eligibility
- The business operates in the United States and pays US employees or US-based contractors.
- Development work aims to improve function, performance, reliability or quality.
- The work relies on hard science rather than aesthetics, market research or management judgement.
- Technical uncertainty existed at the start of the project about capability, method or design.
- Alternatives were evaluated through modelling, simulation, prototyping or systematic testing.
- The business retains financial risk and substantial rights in the results.
- Activity is separable from routine quality control, maintenance and post-production support.
- Prior-year returns are still within the amendment window, if a retrospective claim is intended.
Checklist two
Documentation
- Project-level narratives describing uncertainty, alternatives evaluated and outcomes.
- Payroll records identifying who performed, supervised or supported the research.
- Time allocation evidence, whether timesheets, sprint records or a defensible allocation method.
- General ledger detail for supplies consumed in the research process.
- Contracts with third-party developers showing risk allocation and rights in the results.
- Design reviews, test plans, test results and failure analyses.
- Version control history, issue tracker records or lab notebooks contemporaneous with the work.
- Cloud computing invoices attributable to development and testing environments.
- Board or management approvals evidencing the project scope and objectives.
- A written methodology memorandum explaining the base amount and calculation method chosen.
Find out what your research actually qualifies for
A scoping conversation takes thirty minutes and costs nothing. You leave with a view on eligibility, likely credit range and the documentation you would need.