R&D credit claims need activity-level support. Everhour keeps research time connected to projects, reports, and exports.
Enter your time in and out for each day. Overtime and gross pay are calculated automatically.
| Day | Time In | Break Start | Break End | Break | Time Out | Total |
|---|
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
Set a budget, assign rates, and get alerted before you're over.
Measurement
Track your budget through time or costs
Every report you need — configured your way, always up to date.
Tracked hours flow straight into a polished invoice — no copy-paste, no manual math.
Research credit time records support the wage and contract expense amounts that flow into a section 41 claim. The practical job is to show who worked on qualified research, which business component the work supported, and whether the activity involved actual conduct, direct supervision, or direct support of qualified research. Higher-level management and general administrative work need separate treatment because those services are excluded from qualified services.
For employees covered by the FLSA minimum wage or overtime provisions, employer records must also include hours worked each workday and total hours worked each workweek. Those wage-and-hour records do not replace research credit support, but they give payroll totals a reliable base. The credit file needs the added research layer: project, task, role, activity type, and business component.
Mixed work is the central tracking problem. When an employee performs both qualified and nonqualified services, qualified wages are generally allocated by multiplying total wages by the ratio of time spent on qualified services to total services, unless the taxpayer shows a more appropriate allocation method. A weekly total by person is too thin because it does not show which hours belong to qualified research activities.
A practical entry for an engineer can read: `Product search prototype, algorithm test design, 3.5 hours, business component: customer matching software, activity: experimentation`. A separate entry should cover team status meetings, customer support, hiring, or administrative planning when those tasks are not qualified services. That separation protects the wage ratio and keeps nonqualified time from inflating qualified research expenses.
Qualified research requirements apply separately to each business component, such as a product, process, computer software, technique, formula, or invention. The time record should therefore tag work to the specific component, not just to a department or broad initiative. A software team working on two products in the same sprint needs two traceable time paths when both products appear in the credit calculation.
This structure also matters for Form 6765. For tax years beginning after 2025, Section G business-component information is required unless an exception applies, including the qualified-small-business reduced payroll tax credit exception or the original-return exception for taxpayers with no more than $1.5 million in QREs and no more than $50 million in average annual gross receipts. Required Section G reporting must cover at least 80% of total QREs by business component, with no more than 50 business components listed in descending order by total QREs.
A one-off time summary is enough for a small cleanup when the team already has complete notes, payroll totals, and business-component detail. It is weak when research work runs across many projects, employees split time between qualified and nonqualified services, contractors contribute to development, or managers need the same data for tax, billing, and planning reviews.
A managed workflow gives the credit file a repeatable source of truth. Everhour Reporting turns logged time, budgets, costs, and project data into configurable reports with 45+ columns, metadata filters, grouping, date ranges, and exports in CSV, Excel/XLSX, or PDF. That makes it easier to review qualified activity by person, project, client, task, or business component before tax work compresses months of records into one deadline.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
High Performer
G2
Summer 2026
Best Ease Of Use
Capterra
Summer 2026
Rated in the top time trackers across G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius — with consistent praise for ease of use, integrations, and support.
A useful record identifies the worker, date, hours, project or task, business component, and activity performed. The activity should show whether the person conducted qualified research, directly supervised it, or directly supported it. Broad labels such as "development" or "research" give reviewers little to connect to the section 41 requirements.
Yes. Mixed roles are common, and the qualified wage amount generally follows the ratio of time spent on qualified services to total services, unless the taxpayer can show a more appropriate allocation method. Separate entries for experimentation, supervision, support, administration, customer work, and management keep that ratio defensible.
The qualified research tests apply separately to each business component. For tax years beginning after 2025, required Form 6765 Section G reporting must cover at least 80% of total QREs by business component, with no more than 50 components listed in descending order by total QREs, unless an exception applies.
No. Contract research expenses generally include 65% of amounts paid to non-employees for qualified research or services that would be qualified services if employees performed them. Contractor records still need activity, project, and business-component detail because the percentage limit applies only after the underlying work qualifies.
No. There are separate 80% concepts. If at least 80% of an employee's wages are allocated to qualified services for the tax year, all services performed by that employee for that taxpayer during that year are treated as qualified services. Qualified research also has a substantially-all requirement based on 80% or more of research activities being elements of a process of experimentation for a qualified purpose.
Everhour Reporting lets teams build reports with 45+ columns, grouping, filters, date ranges, and exports in CSV, Excel/XLSX, or PDF. A reviewer can group logged time by project, task, member, client, comments, billable time, labor costs, or integration custom fields to prepare a cleaner research credit workpaper.
Everhour can track time inside supported project tools such as Asana, ClickUp, GitHub, Linear, Jira, Monday, Notion, Trello, and Basecamp. Developers and managers can log time against the task where the work happens, which keeps research activity closer to the project record.
Track research activity in the same workflow that teams use for projects, then use Everhour Reporting to group, filter, and export the records that support R&D credit review.
14-day free trial · No credit card · Cancel anytime
