{
  "version": "1.16.0",
  "releasedAt": "2026-09-07",
  "kpi": {
    "rogueId": "finance.rd_payroll",
    "slug": "rd_payroll",
    "domain": "finance",
    "defaultLabel": "R&D Payroll",
    "description": "Fully-loaded compensation for engineering, data, QA, DevOps, and technical leadership for the period (salary, employer taxes, benefits). The largest R&D cost for most software companies.",
    "fieldType": "currency",
    "unit": null,
    "maturity": "general",
    "suggestedForStages": [
      "seriesA",
      "seriesB",
      "seriesC",
      "public"
    ],
    "defaultOwningFunctions": [
      "Finance"
    ],
    "stageRelevance": {
      "seriesA": "recommended",
      "seriesB": "recommended",
      "seriesC": "recommended",
      "public": "recommended"
    },
    "definitionSource": {
      "tier": "editorial",
      "sourceName": "imboard Editorial",
      "sourceUrl": null,
      "sectionRef": null,
      "publicationDate": "2026-04-01",
      "attributionNotice": null,
      "authorityLevel": "imboard-editorial"
    },
    "formula": "Fully-loaded R&D personnel cost for the period.",
    "whyItMatters": "The dominant input to R&D spend and a primary driver of total burn.",
    "interpretationGuidance": "Track against headcount plan; step-changes usually reflect hiring or comp true-ups.",
    "relatedKpiIds": [
      "finance.total_rnd",
      "hr.total_headcount"
    ],
    "calculationPolicy": {
      "inclusionRules": [
        "Fully-loaded compensation (salary + employer taxes + benefits) for engineering, data, QA, DevOps, and technical leadership EMPLOYEES."
      ],
      "exclusionRules": [
        "Contractors, freelancers, and dev shops — those are finance.contractors_outsourcing, not payroll.",
        "Product managers and designers (finance.product_design_payroll) and engineering tooling (finance.rd_tools_software).",
        "Production cloud serving customers (finance.cloud_hosting, COGS)."
      ],
      "requiredInputs": [
        "R&D-classified employee roster with fully-loaded cost.",
        "Period payroll register mapped to department."
      ],
      "dataSourcePriority": [
        "Payroll system grouped by department.",
        "HRIS headcount mapping as the classification source."
      ],
      "edgeCases": [
        "An engineer split between R&D and COGS support is allocated by time.",
        "Mid-period new hires are prorated; comp true-ups step the line.",
        "If the company capitalizes software-development labor, state the convention — capitalized labor is not expensed here."
      ],
      "validationChecks": [
        "Track against the headcount plan; step-changes should map to hiring or comp true-ups.",
        "Rolls into finance.total_rnd. NOTE: finance.total_rnd and product.rd_monthly_spend are two views of the SAME R&D spend — never sum them."
      ],
      "commonMiscomputations": [
        "Reporting base payroll instead of fully-loaded cost — under-reports true R&D burn by 25–40%.",
        "Folding contractors into payroll — breaks the employee-vs-contractor read and double-counts against finance.contractors_outsourcing.",
        "Double-counting R&D payroll against the product.rd_monthly_spend roll-up."
      ]
    },
    "metricBasis": {
      "timeBasis": "period_flow",
      "production": "primary"
    }
  }
}