Building Your SR&ED Claim

I have been through many SRED reviews with CRA over the years, and I have observed what makes a claim strong and what makes it weak. It is MUCH better to keep SRED in mind right from the early stages of a project and to document things accordingly.

Here is what CRA wants to see:

1. They want records that show that at the outset of a project you have set out the technological objectives. 


2. They want to see how it was that achieving these objectives would solve a technological or scientific uncertainty.

3. They want to see that there was no way of resolving that uncertainty using only the pre-existing knowledge (what you know at the outset of the project plus what was available within the public domain).

4. They want to know what you did to try to find a solution within standard practices. You can't very well say that knowledge existing at the outset of the project couldn't do what you needed to do if you haven't looked for it.


5. They want to see that before you did the work, you determined how you would measure how well the objectives (see1 above) were being achieved.

6. They want to see that at an early stage you had a plan as to what methods and analyses you would use to resolve the technological or scientific uncertainties.

7. They want to see how you followed your plan, and they want to see that you have records that prove it.


8. They want to see what were the results of your experiments and analyses. This means some notations as to what you found and what conclusions you drew and why you did so. Sometimes your experiments and analyses may involve forming a new hypothesis. CRA wants to see that recorded also.


Sometimes new uncertainties will arise during the course of trying to resolve previous ones. Then records of these and how your tackle them ought to be kept.


It's important to have records that are produced as the project progresses. These records should be usable as evidence of the above items 1 to 8, but also the records should establish how much was spent doing the work. Time sheets should be kept by each project worker, showing what they did each day and how it relates to the SRED. I suggest that each technological uncertainty is given a number (such as 1, 2, 3...) and each time sheet entry is coded with the number of the uncertainty to which that work relates.


Do these things, and the likelihood of a successful claim is  substantially increased.