R&D Tax Credits
Security & Access Control
Networked security is engineering. Designing it, hardening it, and integrating it across vendors is qualifying R&D work.
$0
Initial assessment. No fee to find out.
4-8 wks
Typical study, start to finish.
9 yrs
Building defensible credit claims since 2017.
Why this work qualifies
Modern security work is systems engineering. A multi-site access control rollout is not a catalog order; it is an architecture that someone on your team had to design, test, and debug. Video analytics that actually work in the field, badging logic that handles the client's real workflows, devices from competing vendors forced onto one network: each of those is a technical problem your engineers solved through iteration.
That iteration is what the federal credit pays for. The qualification standard asks whether your team faced technical uncertainty and worked through it systematically, not whether the end product is novel to the world. Security integrators clear that bar constantly and claim it rarely, because the work is spread across projects and nobody has mapped it to the credit's language. That mapping is the core of what a study does.
Common qualifying activities
- ✓Designing access control architectures across multiple sites
- ✓Programming logic for badging, visitor management, and intrusion
- ✓Integrating cameras with video analytics platforms
- ✓Resolving cross-vendor hardware compatibility
- ✓Engineering cybersecurity hardening for networked devices
What typically does not qualify
Standard camera and panel installs that follow a proven spec, monitoring services, and routine maintenance contracts generally do not qualify. A defensible claim separates engineering work from fulfillment work.
Common questions
Security & Access Control, answered.
Most of our projects are for clients. Does client work still count?
It can. What matters is the contract: who bears the economic risk of the development work and who retains rights to use what was learned. Many integration contracts leave both with the integrator. It is worth a careful read before assuming either answer, and that review is part of the assessment.
Does cybersecurity hardening qualify?
Engineering-level hardening often does: designing network segmentation for device fleets, resolving vulnerabilities that required real diagnosis, building secure integration layers. Running a standard checklist or installing patches generally does not.
Our techs don't log time by project. Is that a problem?
Usually not a dealbreaker. Studies commonly build reasonable allocations from job records, project files, and interviews with leads. Better records strengthen a claim, but their absence rarely kills one.
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