You file. We document.

The Section 41 R&D credit is permanent post-PATH-Act, but the documentation burden grew sharply on January 10, 2022 with the IRS Section 41 refund-claim transition rule, and it grows again for tax year 2026 with mandatory Form 6765 Section G reporting for non-exempt filers. For a generalist CPA serving a SaaS portfolio, that means three pressure points:

• Documentation expectations have outpaced billable-hour economics. The IRS expects contemporaneous four-part-test rationale per business component with QRE allocation. Most generalist practices cannot build that artifact at a price point a $1M to $20M ARR SaaS customer will pay.
• Specialty R&D credit firms and Big Four R&D practices typically quote in the $25,000 to $75,000 range for comparable documentation, depending on company size and scope. Your client sees that range, declines, and either skips the credit entirely or tries to compute it themselves. Either way the credit is left on the table or claimed without defensible documentation.
• Section G is mandatory for non-exempt filers starting tax year 2026. Per-business-component reporting becomes a return-prep blocker for clients past the carve-outs: the QSB payroll-offset election, and the small-dollar exception for original returns with QREs of $1.5M or less (controlled-group level) and average annual gross receipts of $50M or less over the prior three years. Those exceptions cover many early-stage companies, but your growth-stage clients will need this artifact. See which clients Section G binds.
• The OBBBA amended-return window closes July 6, 2026. Small-business clients (under $31M average gross receipts) can amend 2022-2024 to deduct capitalized research costs, and amended credit claims must identify business components and activities up front. The 2022-2024 amended-returns guide is the client conversation to have this month.

R&D Binder solves the gap from the documentation side at a fraction of those rates. You stay the preparer of record. We become a vendor your client engages directly, and you receive the deliverable in a format you can attach to Form 6765.

Direct referral (most common)

Your client engages R&D Binder directly. They pay us, complete intake, install our read-only GitHub App on their engineering org. We produce the binder PDF, QRE workpaper, and Section G appendix. We deliver to both your client and you. You attach to Form 6765 and file. There is no contract, fee split, or ongoing obligation between R&D Binder and your firm.

Best for: ad hoc client referrals where you do not want to layer a vendor relationship into your existing workflow.

White-label

R&D Binder produces the binder under your firm's brand. Your firm's name and brand colors appear on the cover, header, and footer of every deliverable; R&D Binder does not appear anywhere the client sees. R&D Binder bills your firm directly at partner rates, 20 percent off every tier ($2,396 / $3,996 / $7,596 by FTE count), plus the $750 white-label add-on.

For GitHub access we provide unbranded templates you forward to the client (fine-grained read-only PAT, or a git log CSV export as a backup). The client never sees an artifact, link, or credential tied to R&D Binder.

Best for: keeping R&D credit documentation visibly inside your firm's practice rather than as a referred-out service.

To set up a white-label engagement, use the contact form with your firm name before referring a client. We will invoice your firm and send the unbranded intake materials you forward to the client.

Audit-defense scoping (separate engagement)

If a client receives an IRS examination notice for an R&D credit claim and the binder is the substantiation, we can engage at hourly rates to support the examination. This is a separate scope from the binder itself, scoped per-incident, billed at $250 per hour. Includes IDR response drafting, IRS-meeting prep, and substantiation reconciliation. We do not represent before the IRS; that remains your responsibility or the client's tax controversy attorney's.

Three steps to send a client our way.

1. Send the client to /estimate first. The client-side calculator returns a credit estimate and the right tier in 30 seconds. If the credit is too small to justify the engagement fee, the calculator says so and they back out before we engage.
2. Tell them to pick the tier matching their engineering FTE count. Indie ($2,995, up to 5 FTE), SaaS Standard ($4,995, 6 to 25 FTE), Scale ($9,495, 26 to 60 FTE). Above 60 FTE we scope custom.
3. Ask them to put your name on the order intake CPA contact field. When they complete the post-payment intake form, the CPA contact field captures your full name, firm, and email. We deliver the final binder, QRE workpaper, and Section G appendix to that email automatically.

That is the entire workflow. No paperwork between R&D Binder and your firm. No fee splits. No referral kickbacks (we do not pay them; they would compromise the doc-only positioning).

R&D Binder is documentation only. We never:

• Prepare or sign IRS Form 6765 or any other tax form
• Take a position on whether the client should claim the credit
• Compute the final credit amount on Form 6765 (we provide the QRE pool; you compute the credit using your tax software)
• Elect Section 41(c) methods or Section 41(h) payroll-tax-offset positions
• Represent the client before the IRS

You retain Treasury Circular 230 and IRC Section 6695 preparer responsibility. R&D Binder is positioned as a workpaper-producing vendor that the IRS treats as third-party documentation, not as a tax-advice provider.

If the IRS examines a return on which our binder is the substantiation, our standard scope ends at delivering the binder. The audit-defense engagement (above) is the path to extend that scope per-incident.

Per binder engagement, you receive three deliverables by email at final delivery:

• Binder PDF. 30 to 80 pages. Cover page, executive summary, four-part-test rubric per business component, audit-defense flag review, methodology appendix, citations to primary sources. The Cal.com 2024 demonstration binder is the format.
• QRE workpaper. XLSX file with three sheets: wages by employee with 80-percent-research-time defaulting, contract research at the 65-percent allowance per Section 41(b)(3), and supplies if applicable. Designed to drop into your tax software.
• Section G appendix. The per-business-component table that becomes mandatory in tax year 2026 (processing year 2027) for non-exempt filers. Already formatted to the Section G field schema; you copy values into your tax software's Form 6765 Section G entry screen.

Plus a methodology summary email so you can quickly explain the binder's structure to the client if they ask why we made specific QRE allocation choices.

Two ways to start.

• Refer a client now. Send them to rdbinder.com/estimate. They pay us directly, intake takes 10 to 15 minutes for them, and you receive the deliverable when the binder is finalized.
• Talk through your portfolio first. If you have three or more SaaS clients with engineering teams, use the contact form with subject "CPA partnership" and a one-paragraph description of your practice. We will follow up to scope a portfolio approach (white-label, recurring referrals, or both).

Either way, no contract on your side. R&D Binder operates as a vendor to your clients; you stay the preparer of record.