Stop chasing R&D evidence after the work is done.
- Benchmark: query planner rewriteCode, captured 09:14, first recorda3f9 1c07
- ENG-142: cache fails under loadTicket, captured 11:02, linked to a3f95be2 90d4
- Why approach A was droppedChat, captured 15:47, linked to 5be2e81c 4a6f
Chain fingerprint 7c1e 52b0 … 09ab
Evidante helps R&D tax advisers preserve technical evidence from their clients' engineering tools, making records easier to review, retrieve and verify when preparing claims or responding to IRS examinations.
Built for US R&D tax credit practices. You judge the claim. Evidante keeps the records.
The problem
The R&D happens in real time.
The evidence is rebuilt from memory.
Most practices gather technical evidence when the claim is prepared, months after the work, when it is hardest to find.
Collecting evidence
Chasing clients for records
Requests go out after the period ends and wait behind the client's own priorities. Each claim starts with a fresh hunt.
Explaining the work
Asking engineers to remember
The people who did the work are asked to recall decisions made months earlier, or have already moved on.
Preparing the claim
Rebuilding the story by hand
Your team searches tickets, chat and repositories never organised for a claim, then writes accounts weaker than records made at the time.
IRS examination
Doing it all again when the IRS examines the claim
The same records must be found and explained again, sometimes years after filing.
Evidante keeps the record as the work happens, so none of this has to be rebuilt later. See how it works
What the IRS asks for
The IRS now asks for the detail, business component by business component.
- Required
- Form 6765 Section G (business component information) for tax years beginning after 2025Source: IRS
- Per component
- refund claims must identify each business component and the research activities performed for itSource: IRS
- On examination
- the IRS may ask who performed each activity and what they sought to discoverSource: IRS
- §6001
- taxpayers must keep the records the IRS prescribes, and can be required to keep records sufficient to show whether they are liable for taxSource: 26 U.S.C. §6001
Records made at the time are easier to rely on than records rebuilt later. All the facts and sources
How it works
Five steps from your client's tools to a verified Defence Pack.
Every screen below is from the product itself, using a demo client.
Step 1 of 5: Connect
Your client connects the tools their engineers already use: GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jira, Linear or Azure DevOps. Team notes can be sent from Slack or Teams. It is a one-off setup; nothing new for engineers to fill in.
Connected once by the client's engineering lead
Code and builds
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Bitbucket
- Azure DevOps
Tickets
- Jira
- Linear
Team notes
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
What Evidante receives
Only what each tool sends about the work: commit messages, pull requests, build results, ticket changes and notes sent to it. It never reads source code.
Step 2 of 5: Preserve
Each commit, pull request, build result, ticket change and note is recorded as it happens, with who, when, where and a reference back to the original. Each record is fingerprinted and linked to the one before, so any later change is detectable. Source code is never read.
One record, as Evidante keeps itA Jira ticket update: when it happened, who made it, which ticket it belongs to, what it says, and when Evidante recorded it. This one is marked "Added later" because it was brought in after the work, and the Defence Pack says so. Step 3 of 5: Organise
Records are grouped by client, project and date, using the mapping your team sets (which repositories and ticket keys belong to which project). Every record is kept; nothing is filtered or scored.
One project, day by dayIn the partner portal, each project's records are listed in date order: what happened on each day, and which commits, tickets, builds and discussions it came from. Step 4 of 5: Review
Your reviewing professional reads each project's records, records a baseline, and decides: include, exclude or needs more information, with reasons. Evidante records the decision and who made it.
The reviewing professional's decision, on the recordYour reviewing professional chooses include, exclude or needs more information and writes their reasons. Evidante saves it with their name and the date. Evidante does not make this decision. Step 5 of 5: Verify
Export a Defence Pack. Anyone can check the records are unchanged at evidante.com/verify, without an account, and confirm a pack file is exactly the one Evidante produced.
Anyone can check the records are unchangedEnter the client reference at evidante.com/verify. No account is needed. Every record's fingerprint is recalculated, and the check fails if any record was changed, removed, inserted or reordered.
The business case
Spend your team's time assessing claims, not gathering evidence.
The value is in staff time: fewer hours spent requesting, chasing and organising technical records, and more capacity for the advisory work clients pay for.
Less evidence administration
Records arrive from the client's tools as the work happens, instead of being requested and chased at claim time.
Faster to find
Every record for a client sits in one place, by project and date, with a reference back to the source.
Survives staff changes
When a client's engineers or your own team change, the record of what was done, and when, stays.
The same shape for every client
Each client's evidence is organised the same way, which makes review and handover simpler.
Work through your own numbers
A simple estimate. Change every value to match your practice.
Your estimate
- Current annual cost of evidence work
- $28,000
- Potential hours saved a year
- 100
- Potential annual staff-time saving
- $7,000
Illustrative only. The starting values are examples, not industry averages or results from Evidante customers; replace them with your own. Time freed up is only a saving if it is used for other work.
See the output
Read a sample Defence Pack.
A Defence Pack is one PDF that sets out a client's R&D records, where each one came from, and the reviewing professional's recorded decisions. It lets the firm answer the IRS's questions in an IRS examination from the records themselves. It supports the claim; it does not decide whether the work qualifies.
The sample below is a real pack, produced by Evidante from a fictional company's synthetic records. No client data.
Sample Defence Pack, PDF, 23 pages
A fictional company, Demo Client LTD, with two projects, both assessed and formally signed off by a professional.
- Summary of the evidence
- Each decision beside its records
- Every record, with its source
- How to check the pack
The sample's client reference is not a real client, so it will not verify at /verify.
What a pack shows
- What was recorded, by whom and when, as the source tools reported it
- That no record has changed since it was captured
- Which records were added later rather than captured at the time
- The reviewing professional's recorded decisions and reasons
What a pack does not show
- Whether any work qualifies for relief
- Which costs qualify, or how much to claim
- That the IRS will accept a claim
- Anything about work that left no trace in a connected tool
Enquiries and examinations
When the IRS asks, the records are already there.
An enquiry usually asks what was done, when, and by whom. With Evidante, your team can retrieve the records made at the time, for the project in question, with a reference back to each original, instead of reconstructing them.
Shows the records have not changed
Every record is fingerprinted and linked to the one before. Anyone can check this, with or without Evidante's servers.
Does not establish eligibility
Whether work qualifies is the reviewing professional's judgement and your firm's advice. A Defence Pack supports that judgement with evidence; it is not a substitute for it.
Security
Built to keep client evidence safe and unchanged.
What is in place today, checked against the product. Evidante has not yet obtained ISO 27001 certification or a SOC 2 attestation; the Security page sets out what is in place and what is not.
Evidence integrity
Each record is fingerprinted with SHA-256 and linked to the one before. A changed, removed or reordered record no longer matches the fingerprints after it, and the integrity check shows where.
Storage
Record files are kept in Amazon S3 (London region) with Object Lock: stored versions cannot be overwritten or deleted for 7 years. The database is managed PostgreSQL. Both are encrypted at rest by the provider, and connections use HTTPS.
Client separation
Each client has its own record chain, keys and webhook secrets. A firm can only see its own clients; this is covered by automated tests.
Access
Firm passwords are stored only as bcrypt hashes. Clients sign in with a 12-word access key that can be replaced, and the old one turned off. Firm users can turn on two-step sign-in with an authenticator app.
Integrations
Connected tools send events to the client's own webhook address, and each delivery is checked against that client's own secret before it is recorded. Evidante never reads source code.
Audit and deletion
Sign-ins, exports, access-key changes, admin actions and deletions are logged. A client's data can be erased on request; write-once copies cannot be deleted before their 7-year lock ends, and are kept out of use until then.
Who decides
Your team keeps the judgement.
Evidante organises and preserves technical evidence. Your team, and the reviewing professional, remain responsible for eligibility assessments, qualifying expenditure and claim preparation.
Evidante does
- Records activity from your clients' tools as it happens
- Keeps every record unchanged and detectable if altered
- Organises records by client, project and date
- Records the professional's review and sign-off
- Produces Defence Packs anyone can verify
Evidante does not
- Decide whether work qualifies
- Decide which costs qualify
- Give tax or legal advice
- Read source code
- Prepare or file the claim
Pilot
Start with a small number of clients.
A pilot lets your team see Evidante working on real client tools before committing your practice.
- Who it is for
- US R&D tax credit practices preparing claims for software and technology companies.
- What is included
- Your firm portal, client vaults for the clients you choose, help connecting each client's tools, and a walk-through of a Defence Pack built from their records.
- Onboarding
- A short call to agree the scope, then each client's engineering lead connects their tools using the setup guide. We help with the first connection.
- Length and size
- The pilot length and the number of client vaults are agreed with you, in writing, before you start.
- What you get
- Live record capture for the pilot clients, the partner portal, and Defence Packs you can review and export.
- What success looks like
- Agreed with you at the start; typically, records arriving from each connected tool and a pack your team has reviewed.
- Afterwards
- Continue on a subscription, or stop. Either way, you can export Defence Packs and the records index first.
FAQ
What partners ask us
For US practices, references to records and review apply to IRC §41 claims in the same way.
We already collect evidence. Why would we need Evidante?
Most practices collect evidence when the claim is prepared. Evidante records it as the work happens, so less has to be requested, chased or reconstructed later, and every client's records are kept in the same, verifiable form.
Does the IRS require this software?
No. the IRS does not require any particular software. It expects claims to be supported by evidence; Evidante is one way of keeping that evidence.
Does Evidante guarantee that a claim will be accepted?
No. Evidante does not decide whether work qualifies and cannot guarantee any outcome with the IRS. It preserves and organises the records your team and the reviewing professional rely on.
Can it access private repositories?
The client connects the repositories they choose, including private ones. Evidante receives the event the tool sends, such as a commit message, author and time. It never reads or stores source code.
Who owns the evidence?
The client. Our Terms say evidence data and Defence Packs belong to the client and their appointed professional.
Where is the data stored?
Record files are stored in Amazon S3 in the London region, in write-once storage. The application runs on Railway and the database on Supabase (managed PostgreSQL). Amazon S3 and Supabase encrypt the stored data at rest. The Security page lists exactly what is stored and where.
What happens if we cancel?
You can download Defence Packs and the records index at any time, including before you leave. How long data is kept after cancellation is set out in our Terms.
How does verification work?
Every record carries a fingerprint linked to the one before. At evidante.com/verify, anyone can enter the client reference on a pack to check nothing has changed, or check a pack file itself. An offline verifier works without our servers.
Can we review the evidence before exporting?
Yes. The partner portal shows every record by project and date, with the professional's review form, before any pack is produced. The pack itself lists what each project's record does not yet hold.
How long does onboarding take?
Connecting a tool is a one-off step for the client's engineering lead, following the setup guide. For a pilot, we agree the onboarding plan with you at the start.
Does it replace technical interviews?
No. Interviews and the reviewing professional's judgement remain part of the work. Evidante gives them dated records to start from.
How does it handle many clients?
Each client has its own vault and record chain. Your firm sees all of its clients in one portal, with which projects are awaiting review.
Book a briefing
See how Evidante could fit into your R&D practice.
Explore how continuous evidence preservation could reduce manual administration and improve access to supporting technical records.
- 15 minutes, by video call
- How it would work for your practice and clients
- A walk through a Defence Pack, and your questions
Prefer email? partners@evidante.com