Stacking R&DTI and EMDG for maximum benefit

A pre-revenue software company doing genuine R&D and selling into its first overseas markets can realistically receive a 43.5% cash refund on eligible R&D spend plus up to 50% reimbursement on eligible export marketing spend (capped at $80k/year under EMDG Tier 1). For a $500k R&D budget and $40k marketing budget that's roughly $217k from R&DTI plus $20k from EMDG in the same year.

The catch: the same dollar can never be funded twice. If a salary is partly R&D and partly export marketing, you must apportion - and you must do it before you lodge either claim.

R&DTI explicitly disallows expenditure that has been or will be recouped from another government program. EMDG does the inverse: spend already claimed under R&DTI is excluded from the EMDG eligible cost base. In practice this means:

• R&D engineering salaries stay in R&DTI. They are not export marketing costs even if the product ships overseas.
• Trade show stands, overseas travel, foreign marketing consultants, translation are EMDG. They are not R&D activity.
• Mixed roles (e.g. a founder who codes 60% of the time and pitches overseas customers 40%) must be split by timesheet evidence. The 60% R&D portion goes into R&DTI; the 40% export portion goes into EMDG.

Both programs accept reasonable apportionment as long as it is contemporaneous and evidenced. The cleanest method:

1. Run a monthly time-tracking export (Linear, Jira, payroll time-sheets) for every person whose work spans both programs.
2. Assign each block of work to one program. R&D goes to R&DTI; export market development goes to EMDG; sales to existing domestic customers goes to neither.
3. Apply the resulting percentage to each person's salary and on-costs. Keep the export ready for audit.

R&DTI registration with AusIndustry is due 10 months after year end. EMDG applications open annually for the upcoming financial year and are first-come, first-served until the program cap is hit. The practical sequence:

• Pre year-end: apply for EMDG. You are committing to future export spend. Approval gives you a funding agreement for up to 3 years.
• Year end: lock the cost apportionment so R&DTI and EMDG claims do not overlap on the same dollar.
• Post year-end: lodge R&DTI registration, then include the R&D tax offset in your company tax return. Submit the EMDG milestone report against the approved plan.

State programs (NSW MVP Ventures, Vic LaunchVic, QLD Ignite Ideas, SA Research Commercialisation) sit on top of R&DTI in most cases - they fund different activities (commercialisation, customer discovery, manufacturing pilots). Read each program's recoupment clause. A program that explicitly excludes R&D-eligible spend can usually be combined cleanly; one that funds the same salary you are also claiming under R&DTI must be netted off.

Industry Growth Program grants are larger and often milestone-funded. They almost always require you to net any recouped amount off your R&DTI claim.

When you connect your payroll, ticketing and ledger to KarenGrants, Karen builds a single apportioned cost base and shows you - per dollar - which program it lives under. The R&DTI narrative and the EMDG plan-to-market are drafted from the same underlying evidence, so there is no risk of the same hour appearing in both. You see the combined cash benefit estimate before you commit to either lodgement.