R&D project management
Share projects across your team and link every research activity to the uncertainty it addresses.
- Track R&D and non-R&D hours by activity
- Upload documents and evidence
- Project management reports for R&D managers
R&D project management · SR&ED · Grants · Patents
Turn Research into Development
RDBASE is an online workspace where research teams benchmark their work against prior art, document it as they go, and turn the record into patent filings, grant applications and SR&ED tax credit claims.
Built on the OECD international definition of R&D · desktop and mobile
BenchmarkCurrent practice and prior art: what was already known before the work began
Project
Uncertainty & hypothesisWhat standard practice couldn't resolve, and what the team set out to prove
T661 · 242
Activities, results & conclusionsEach test logged with hours, costs and evidence, linked back to its uncertainty
T661 · 244–246
70%improvement in documentation accuracy
90%less effort preparing grant applications
50%reduction in patent costs
75%less time spent on SR&ED applications
What RDBASE does
One record of your R&D, three ways to use it
Researchers document once. The same structured record supports project management, government funding and intellectual property.
SR&ED tax credits & grants
Turn day-to-day records into claim-ready project descriptions, with costs already allocated to projects.
- Labour, materials and subcontractor costs linked to activities
- Reports structured for SR&ED and grant programs
- Export to Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer and Intuit tax software
Prior art & IP filing
Benchmark your work against existing technology before you start, and document advancements for patent filings.
- Technology prior art searches
- Benchmarks recorded for each project
- Advancements documented as they happen
How it works
From the bench to a filed claim, in three steps
Researchers document the work while it happens, the costs are attached to it, and a preparer reviews and files. Each step hands a clean record to the next.
Step 1 · Researchers & managers
Document the technical work
Use the free project planner and intake tools to build the technical half of the claim as the research happens.
- Benchmark the knowledge base and its limits
- Quantify objectives against current performance
- Record uncertainties, experiments and conclusions
Step 2 · Finance
Keep it in your own account
Host your projects and costs in your own Claude or Google Forms account. Nothing is sent to us, and the data stays where you control it.
- Labour hours by person and activity
- Subcontractors, materials and equipment
- Costs allocated to the project they belong to
Step 3 · Filing
Send it to your preparer
Send the files to MEUK Corporation or your own SR&ED preparer for review and tax filing.
- Eligibility reviewed by a qualified practitioner
- Exports to Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer and Intuit
- Representation if the claim is reviewed
Download the free RDBASE tools to start documenting your R&D. For licensing and pricing, email us and we'll get back to you with current options.
Security & resources
Your data, protected. Examples to learn from.
Security and hosting
- Encrypted HTTPS portal with two-level authentication
- Authorize your consultants to view your data at no extra cost
- Prefer to keep data in-house? Run the offline file on your own machine, or host it yourself on a virtual machine
- Cost templates as Google Sheets, linked to the projects they belong to
SR&ED project description examples
Worked project descriptions drawn from decided SR&ED tax cases, written up in the RDBASE format with commentary on what the court accepted and what it rejected. Covers a range of industries and fields of science.
Reading a claim the court actually ruled on tells you more about where the line sits than any summary of the rules.
Browse the examples →Become a partner
Manage all your clients' R&D in one place
RDBASE Partners use a single dashboard to follow each client's research as it happens and co-ordinate filings with researchers, accountants and other advisors.
- Who can join
- Practising patent agents, CPAs, and research and SR&ED consultants. Others are considered case by case.
- What you get
- Real-time tracking of client research activities, and one place to claim grants, tax credits and patents.
- Cost
- Membership is free, with one brief orientation per firm. Some optional training courses have fees.
Answer two questions and we will draft the email for you to send.
Testimonials
What engineering teams say
RDBASE.NET provided a complete system for our development teams to manage the engineering process in minimal time!
Byrne Engineering Inc.
RDBASE.NET reduced the time spent on our SR&ED applications by 75%.
Kraken Automation Inc.
RDBASE.NET enabled our 100+ engineering team to document their R&D efforts with tremendous efficiency.
SOTI Inc.
Watch the testimonial videos, or open the playlist on YouTube →
Free tools
AI-assisted SR&ED tools
Three free tools following the RDBASE method: two that build the technical half of a claim, and one that attaches the costs to it. Run them in your own Claude account — nothing is sent to us.
Project planner
For research still to do. Searches out relevant articles, patents and comparable products, reports where each one stops short of your target, and asks questions as the work proceeds to sharpen the research itself.
- Prior art and state-of-technology search, with the limits of each option recorded
- Quantified objectives against current performance
- Uncertainties with three to five key variables
- Draft research plan, with the predicted outcome written down before the test
Project intake
For research already done. Takes everything you already have — papers, reports, protocols, notes — identifies the SR&ED components inside it, and prompts you for what the material does not say.
- Reads your existing documentation, whatever form it is in
- Builds the project, uncertainty and activity structure from it
- Checks every project against the method and flags what is weak
- Asks for the objectives, in-year work and roles that documents leave out
Cost templates
For the money side. A Google Sheets template per fiscal year that attaches costs to the projects that justify them. Fill it as the work happens or reconstruct it at year end.
- Hours and wages by person, allocated to the project they worked on
- Subcontractors, arm's length and non-arm's length, kept apart
- Materials transformed or consumed in experimentation
- Totals that reconcile to the T661 lines without re-keying
| How you run it | Where your data lives | Project planner | Project intake | Cost templates | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop The two tools as Claude skills. Needs a Claude account, any plan. Set them up at a computer once; they work from your phone afterwards. | Your own Claude account | Download .zip | Download .zip | Download .xlsx | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mobile The mobile version. Needs only a browser — add it to a phone home screen and log work at the bench. Several people can share one record. | A shared store you control | Set up the mobile version All templates included — set up once and everything is there | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Local Open source. One file plus an optional AI model that runs on your own machine. No account, no connection, nothing leaves the device. | A file on your own machine | Download everything All templates in one file — the workbench, the cost template and a read me | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Hardware needed for the Local optionThe file itself runs anywhere. These are for the optional local AI model, which does the questioning and drafting without sending anything out. All models are Apache 2.0 licensed.
The large models will not run on a phone — 7.4 GB of weights needs 16 GB of memory, which no handset has. On a phone, use the small models. Android chips that handle them: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or newer, MediaTek Dimensity 9000+, Google Tensor G3 or G4. |
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Already set up? Getting back in
There is no RDBASE account for the free tools — your work sits in your own Claude account, or on your own machine. Here is the way back to each.
- Mobile
- Sign in to Claude and open the mobile version. Add it to your phone home screen and you will not need the link again. Open the mobile version
- Desktop
- Sign in to Claude. Your tools are under Customize › Skills and your claim file is in the Project you made for the company — nothing to reinstall. Go to claude.ai
- Local
- Nothing to log into. Your work is the file you saved on your own machine. Lost the tool itself? Download it again and reopen your saved file — your record is in the file, not the tool. Download it again
- RDBASE.NET
- The original system is separate and does have its own account. Legacy login
Setting them up
About five minutes. You need a Claude account that supports skills and file creation.
- In Claude, open Settings › Capabilities and turn on code execution and file creation.
- Go to Customize › Skills, then +, Create skill, Upload a skill. Upload each file separately.
- Keep one claim file per company, in its own Claude Project, so every conversation starts from the current version.
Then describe what you are doing in your own words. You do not have to name a tool.
How to use them (PDF)The method they follow
The same structure RDBASE has used for three decades, which maps the scientific method onto what the courts ask and the CRA requests.
- 1a Benchmark the knowledge base and its limits
- 1b Quantify objectives against current performance
- 2 Tie experiments to uncertainties by hypothesis
- 3a Record the work, and how much was tried
- 3b Report results against each objective
- 3c Conclude on each variable and interrelation
The advancement is the conclusion after all six steps, never the starting point. Work that correlates to no uncertainty is routine engineering.
Get in touch
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