Thorough documentation is a necessity when making an SR&ED claim. Good documentation proves to the CRA reviewers who are looking into your claim that you have done all the work to get through the technical obstacles that you claim to have done. The more documentation that you have, and the better quality it is, the better supported your claim is.

There are two types of documentation that you will need when supporting your claim – technical documentation and financial documentation. Technical documentation shows that some sort of technical advancement has taken place, and financial documentation is to check costing.

Some examples of technical documentation are drawings and photographs, whereas examples for financial documentation are invoices and T4s.