The platform for R&D tax claims.
Scope activities, classify spend and calculate the offset under Division 355, with every figure traced to its source and reviewed before your adviser lodges.
Your R&D claim takes less time to prepare, captures everything you are entitled to, and holds up when your adviser or the ATO asks how each number was reached.
Less time on paperwork
Guided questions and a ledger import replace the spreadsheets and back-and-forth.
Nothing eligible missed
Every activity and expense is checked against the Act, so you claim what you are entitled to.
Ready for review
Each finding cites the legislation, and the full evidence pack exports in one go.
Scope each activity against the Act.
Work through the AusIndustry registration fields and see every activity tested against the statutory gates and exclusions.
- Registration fields9
- Statutory gates3
- Exclusion checks8
Sort your spend straight from the ledger.
Import a Xero or MYOB export. Every line is classified with a confidence score, and anything uncertain is held for review rather than guessed.
- ImportXero, MYOB or CSV
- Spend categories18
- Uncertain linesHeld for review
Calculate the offset for your turnover.
See the refundable or non-refundable offset, by project and by entity.
- Turnover under $20MTax rate + 18.5 points, refundable: 43.5% for base rate entities (48.5% at the 30% rate)
- Turnover $20M or moreTax rate + 8.5 to 16.5 points, non-refundable: 38.5% to 46.5% at the 30% rate, depending on R&D intensity
- BreakdownProject and entity
Prepare everything the claim needs.
Generate the evidence documents, each citing the legislation it relies on, and export one complete pack for your adviser to review and lodge.
- Evidence documentsWith citations
- Evidence packOne export
- Sign-off and lodgementBy your adviser
Every answer shows its working.
Tax advisers are right to ask more of AI than an impressive demo. The test is whether every decision can be traced, evidenced, controlled and supported under review. Elderon is built to pass that test on every claim.
Traceable decisions
Each classification sits against the ledger line it came from, and each finding cites the section of Division 355 it relies on.
Evidence, not assertion
Every activity records its hypothesis, the sources investigated, the experiment run and the new knowledge gained, with the documents that support it.
A full audit trail
Every change is logged with who made it, when, and what changed.
Controls built in
Uncertain lines wait in a review queue until a reviewer approves or rejects them, with a note recording why. Each client’s data is isolated from every other.
Supportable positions
The evidence pack brings scoping, spend, calculation and citations together, so your adviser can sign off and stand behind the claim.
Built for advisory firms. Simple enough for startups.
For advisory firms
Every client's claim in one workspace.
- Multi-client dashboard
- Team roles and permissions
- Review and approval workflow
For companies doing R&D
Get your claim ready for your adviser.
- Guided scoping
- Import from your ledger
- Offset calculator
The R&D Tax Incentive, in plain terms.
Short answers to the questions companies and their advisers ask most. The full guide goes further.
- What is the R&D Tax Incentive?
- The Research and Development Tax Incentive is an Australian Government programme that gives companies a tax offset for eligible research and development. It is set out in Division 355 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 and is administered jointly by AusIndustry, which registers the activities, and the Australian Taxation Office, which processes the offset through the company tax return.
- What is the R&D tax offset worth?
- A company with aggregated turnover under $20 million receives a refundable offset equal to its company tax rate plus 18.5 percentage points, which is 43.5 percent for a base rate entity taxed at 25 percent and 48.5 percent for a company taxed at 30 percent. A company with aggregated turnover of $20 million or more receives a non-refundable offset equal to its tax rate plus 8.5 percentage points on R&D expenditure up to 2 percent of its total expenses (its R&D intensity), and plus 16.5 percentage points on the portion above 2 percent. At the 30 percent tax rate that is 38.5 percent and 46.5 percent respectively.
- Is there a minimum R&D spend to claim?
- Yes. A company needs notional deductions of at least $20,000 in the income year, unless the work was done through a registered Research Service Provider or a Cooperative Research Centre. Notional deductions above $150 million in a year attract an offset at the company tax rate only, with no premium.
- When do R&D activities have to be registered?
- Activities are registered with AusIndustry within 10 months after the end of the income year in which they were conducted. For a company with a 30 June year end, the deadline is 30 April of the following year. Registration comes first; the offset is then claimed in the company tax return.
- What counts as a core R&D activity?
- Under section 355-25, a core R&D activity is an experimental activity whose outcome cannot be known or determined in advance on the basis of current knowledge, information or experience, and that is conducted through a systematic progression of work based on established science, moving from hypothesis to experiment, observation and evaluation, and on to logical conclusions, for the purpose of generating new knowledge. Supporting R&D activities under section 355-30 are those directly related to core activities.
- What records does an R&D claim need?
- Records made at the time the work was done that show the hypothesis, the experiments and their results, who did the work and when, and how expenditure was apportioned to the registered activities. Under section 262A of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, records must generally be kept for five years from when they were prepared or obtained, or from when the transactions they relate to were completed, whichever is later, and the claim should be able to show how each figure was reached if AusIndustry or the ATO reviews it.
- What does Elderon do?
- Elderon prepares an R&D Tax Incentive claim in four steps. It scopes each activity against the statutory tests, sorts spend imported from the company's ledger into R&D categories with every uncertain line held for review, calculates the offset for each entity and project, and generates an evidence pack with each finding citing the legislation it relies on. The adviser reviews the pack and lodges the claim.
- Does Elderon replace a tax adviser?
- No. Elderon is built for advisory firms and the companies they act for. Every output is designed to be reviewed by a person, the firm signs off on the claim, and lodgement stays with the adviser. The platform's AI output is advisory only and is not tax advice.