SR&ED claim preparation, scoped as the year happens.
Scientific Research & Experimental Development claims prepared as part of your T2, by the CPAs who have been reading your books all year rather than by a consultant reconstructing your work from memory in month eleven.
What SR&ED is
SR&ED is Canada's largest federal support program for business research and development, delivered as a tax incentive through the corporate return. Canadian-controlled private corporations can generally claim a refundable investment tax credit on qualifying expenditures such as salaries, contractor costs, and materials consumed in eligible work, with additional provincial credits available on top. Crucially, the credit is refundable for most CCPCs, meaning a company with no tax payable can still receive cash.
Eligible work is defined by whether you faced genuine technological uncertainty and resolved it through systematic investigation. It is not limited to labs and scientists. A great deal of ordinary software and product engineering qualifies, and a great deal of it goes unclaimed because nobody was tracking it while it happened.
Claim preparation, integrated with the return.
Eligibility assessment
We look at the work you are actually doing and tell you honestly whether it qualifies, including when it does not.
Contemporaneous tracking
Eligible projects and costs identified through the year as they are incurred, so the claim is documented rather than reconstructed.
Expenditure costing
Qualifying salaries, contractor costs, and materials identified and costed from the books we already keep.
Claim forms and schedules
Form T661 and Schedule 31 prepared as part of your T2 return, with every figure traceable to source.
Technical narrative support
The technical write-up is prepared with your engineering or product team. They describe the uncertainty, we shape it to what the program asks for.
Provincial credits
Applicable provincial R&D credits prepared alongside the federal claim.
The difference between a claim and a good claim is when you started.
SR&ED claims are strongest when the documentation was created while the work happened: commit histories, sprint notes, and time records that show a real experimental process. Claims assembled after year-end from memory are weaker, take longer, and hold up less well under review. Because we are already in your books monthly, eligible work gets flagged and costed as it is incurred. That is the entire argument for having your SR&ED prepared by the same team that does your bookkeeping and your T2.
SR&ED FAQ
What is SR&ED?
SR&ED, or Scientific Research & Experimental Development, is Canada's federal tax incentive program for business R&D. It is claimed through your corporate tax return as an investment tax credit on qualifying expenditures like salaries, contractor fees, and materials. For most Canadian-controlled private corporations the federal credit is refundable, so a company with no tax payable can still receive cash back.
Does software development qualify for SR&ED?
Often, yes, but not automatically. What matters is whether you faced technological uncertainty that could not be resolved with standard practice, and whether you worked through it systematically. Building a feature with known tools generally does not qualify. Solving a performance, scale, or algorithmic problem where the outcome was genuinely unknown often does. We assess this honestly, because an overstated claim is worse than no claim.
When should I start tracking SR&ED?
At the start of the fiscal year, not at the end of it. The program rewards contemporaneous documentation, meaning evidence created while the work was happening. Companies that start tracking in month one file stronger claims, faster, and are in a much better position if the claim is reviewed.
Do you handle the SR&ED claim and the corporate return together?
Yes. The SR&ED claim is prepared as part of your T2, by the same team. That is deliberate, because the expenditures come straight from books we keep, so the figures reconcile to source rather than being assembled in a separate exercise.
How much does SR&ED preparation cost?
We quote a flat fee at the discovery call based on the size and complexity of the claim. We will also tell you when a claim is too small to be worth preparing. That conversation is free and it happens before you commit to anything.
What is Form T661?
Form T661 is the CRA's SR&ED expenditures claim form, where you describe the work you did and report the qualifying expenditures behind it. It is filed with your T2 corporate return, alongside Schedule 31, which calculates the investment tax credit for a corporation. We prepare both as part of your return rather than as a separate exercise, so the expenditure figures reconcile straight back to the books.
What is the deadline for filing an SR&ED claim?
The SR&ED reporting deadline is 12 months after the filing due date for your T2 return, which for most corporations works out to 18 months after fiscal year-end. It is a statutory deadline that the CRA cannot extend, so a late claim is simply lost. That is the practical reason we identify and cost eligible work through the year rather than scrambling at year-end.
What if my claim gets reviewed by the CRA?
Claims are sometimes selected for review, which is a normal part of the program rather than an accusation. We prepare claims on the assumption that someone will look: documented, traceable to source, and defensible, which is the same standard our founders were held to in Big Four audit practice.
Find out whether your work qualifies.
A thirty-minute conversation is usually enough to know. If the claim isn't worth preparing, we'll say so.