Raffles Consulting Services
Document DTDi market survey costs for YA 2027 by fixing the overseas decision, supplier questions, deliverables, invoice lines and tax schedule.
DTDi market survey costs enter the automatic activity list from YA 2027 together with feasibility studies. That label does not make every research subscription, customer interview or strategy invoice a double deduction. The company should show that the work supports a defined international market expansion or investment-development decision and that the paid deliverables answer the stated questions.
Define the overseas decision before commissioning work
Name the target market, product or service, decision deadline and management owner. State whether the company is testing demand, pricing, channel, regulation, partner options, location or investment feasibility. Use the current IRAS DTDi guidance for the YA 2027 activity and S$400,000 automatic-expenditure cap.
Separate a new market decision from ordinary annual planning, general competitor monitoring and research that serves several countries. If one engagement has multiple purposes, define an allocation method before work starts. Keep evidence of the commercial question and board or management instruction.
Write testable survey deliverables
Require the supplier proposal to identify methodology, respondent or source population, market coverage, sample limits, interviews, analysis, conclusions and underlying data available to the company. A presentation of public facts may not justify the same treatment as a study designed for the company’s expansion decision.
Map fee milestones to accepted deliverables. Record assumptions, limitations and conflicts. Keep raw or supporting evidence where lawful and commercially available. The company should be able to explain how the study affected its entry, investment or rejection decision rather than relying on the supplier’s activity title.
Build the DTDi market survey costs schedule
Link engagement letter, deliverables, invoice lines, payment and decision record. Separate domestic research, implementation, acquisition execution, financing and post-entry work. The current IRAS Form C guidance supports the filing process, while the DTDi page controls the current qualifying activity and cap.
Reconcile all automatic DTDi activities for YA 2027 before applying the cap. Screen grants, rebates and reimbursements and retain documentation of expenditure and purpose for an IRAS request. Obtain tax advice where related-party, mixed-purpose or capital facts are material.
Turn the decision into a controlled file
Use a dated decision record that identifies the applicant, business need, current official source, chosen route, responsible owner, costs, milestones and evidence. Separate facts already verified from forecasts and assumptions. A catalogue listing, supplier statement, consultant recommendation or portal acknowledgement does not establish approval. The company remains responsible for its declarations and commercial decision.
Give each quotation, contract, invoice, payment and deliverable a stable reference. Preserve earlier versions and explain material changes instead of silently replacing them. Where the authority, tax adviser, auditor or another professional must decide a point, record the open question and obtain the required view. Do not convert uncertainty into a confident eligibility statement.
Review before commitment and again before closeout
Run four reviews: suitability, authority, implementation and closeout. At suitability, test the entity, activity and business outcome. Before commitment, freeze the proposed scope, vendor and financial assumptions. During implementation, compare actual work with approved terms. At closeout, reconcile deliverables, accepted results, invoices, full payment, operating evidence and obligations that continue.
Name the person who may approve each stage and the records that person must see. Procurement should not treat a draft application as permission to contract. A project team should not treat supplier completion as company acceptance. Finance should not treat a submitted claim as cash received. Clear status words prevent accidental commitments and weak reporting.
Handle exceptions without rewriting history
Maintain an exception log for changed facts, delayed milestones, supplier variations, cost movements, missing records and failed tests. State the effect on scope, eligibility, timing and expected value. If an authority decision or formal variation is required, use the published route before relying on the change. Silence and helpdesk receipt are not approval.
If a material defect appears, pause the affected acceptance, filing or claim item. Keep original evidence, assign corrective action and set a review date. Do not backdate records, move costs between categories or adjust a baseline after seeing the result. A candid exception with an owned resolution is more credible than a clean-looking file that cannot explain what happened.
Plan handovers before the original project team disperses. The handover should identify the current version, source locations, system access owner, next review date, open exceptions and any condition that continues after payment or filing. Restrict personal, financial and commercially sensitive records to authorised users, while giving each responsible owner enough information to perform the assigned control. Record the external event that should trigger an earlier review, such as a changed programme page, revised authority letter, supplier failure or material business change.
Verify the final outcome independently
Ask someone who did not prepare the final pack to compare the decision, current official source, approved terms, deliverables, payments and operating evidence. Recalculate totals and sample source records. The reviewer should be able to reproduce the conclusion without relying on the preparer’s memory. Record unresolved points with named owners and dates.
Use the DTDi due-diligence and licensing guide for the wider decision and keep this article as the narrower operating guide. After submission, preserve the receipt and reconcile questions, adjustments and the final registered or paid outcome. Continue any reporting, retention, asset-use or other condition that survives closeout.
Practical review checklist
- Market decision fixed
- Survey questions approved
- Method and limits recorded
- Deliverables accepted
- Tax schedule reconciled
The market-survey file is ready when the overseas decision, supplier method, accepted deliverables, paid invoice and YA 2027 DTDi schedule can be reproduced without relying on a generic research label.