We build SR&ED claims from what your engineers already wrote: the commits, pull requests and tickets made while the work was happening, not recalled in an interview a year later. Every sentence cites the artifact behind it, so the claim is an unbroken chain back to the source. In the art world that chain is called a provenance, and it is what proves a work is authentic.
Actual output from our system. Nothing in a claim is written that cannot be pointed back to a record like this one.
Most SR&ED claims go fine. Last year the CRA accepted 90 percent of them exactly as filed. But $4.9 billion was claimed and $4.6 billion was allowed, so roughly $300 million did not survive contact with a reviewer. That gap is not a paperwork problem. It is an evidence problem, and it is the one we build for.
The most common reason claims fail review, in both CRA guidance and the Tax Court record, is missing contemporaneous documentation: proof made while the work happened, not reconstructed from memory a year later. An interview cannot produce that. Your commit history already is that. This is also why the work is faster and costs less, but that is the consequence, not the point.
Four steps. The sequence matters, because each one constrains the next.
Read-only access to your repositories and issue tracker. Processing runs locally. Your source code stays on infrastructure you control.
We look for the specific fingerprints the CRA's own guidelines describe: an uncertainty existing knowledge could not resolve, a hypothesis, an experiment, a result. Routine work is set aside, with reasons recorded.
The three narrative sections of Form T661 are drafted from that evidence, each sentence tied to the artifact behind it. A one-hour kickoff interview fills anything the written record cannot show.
A senior SR&ED specialist reviews and signs. Your own technical lead confirms it is accurate. Your accountant files it with your return. We invoice only after the refund lands.
Federal refundable credit at 35 percent and the B.C. credit at 10 percent. They do not simply add: the B.C. credit counts as government assistance and reduces the federal base, so the real combined rate is about 41.5 percent. The calculator does this properly, and the 55 percent overhead allowance the rules grant on salaries. Move the sliders.
Estimate only, for planning. Real figures depend on eligibility, your corporate structure, and provincial rules. Assumes a Canadian-controlled private corporation using the proxy method.
Aggressive claims are the real risk in this industry. A denied claim costs you interest and penalties, and it costs us a reputation. So the system is built to refuse.
No. Software does the digging: it reads a year of engineering records in minutes and drafts a package where every sentence cites a real artifact. A senior SR&ED specialist then reviews and signs it, your technical lead confirms it is accurate, and your accountant files it. Three people stand between the software and the CRA. What the automation removed is the 40 hours of interviews, not the accountability. If you want a tool that drafts a claim and asks you to sign it yourself, several exist and they are cheaper than us. That is a different product with a different risk on it.
No, and be careful with anyone who does. Across the program, about 90 percent of filed claims are accepted as filed and roughly 4 percent are denied outright (CRA annual program statistics, 2025-26). We only take claims we believe are defensible, and if yours does not pay, we do not charge.
Then you already know the cost. Most engagements are annual, so the natural moment to compare is before your next fiscal year end. We can also look at prior years: claims can be amended up to 18 months after year end, and companies that filed under the old rules often left money behind.
The enhanced 35 percent credit now covers up to $6 million of qualified spend per year, double the previous limit, taking the maximum refundable credit to $2.1 million. Capital expenditures are eligible again. The CRA also introduced a pre-claim approval route, which we use where it helps: it gives a determination on eligibility before you file.
We need read access to the history, which is the commit log, pull requests, and tickets. Processing is local-first, and the engagement letter sets out exactly what is accessed, what is retained for claim defense, and when it is deleted.
We are taking a small first cohort at 15 percent, locked for three years, instead of the standard 18. We aim to need about four hours of your team's time rather than the thirty to forty a traditional engagement takes, and CRA review support is included rather than billed by the hour. Fees are quoted before tax: GST applies, and from 1 October 2026 BC PST applies to this service as well.
Before you commit to anything, we will run your actual engineering history and tell you what is claimable and how well each project is evidenced. Free, and yours to keep either way. A free consultation is standard in this industry; being shown the evidence before you sign is not.
Or email ryan@provenanceclaims.ca directly.