Finance Operating Expense Metrics Efficiency

R&D as % of Revenue

R&D as % of Revenue: Research and development spend as percentage of revenue.

Formula

R&D % = R&D expense / Revenue × 100

Computable definition

The canonical formula in the GASP formula grammar. The MCP server compiles it to SQL over the datasets listed below.

sum(field.cost where field.cost_function = 'research_development') / metric.revenue_gaap

Unit: percent (the formula yields an unscaled ratio)

Data requirements

Grain: Monthly aggregate · Frequency: Monthly · Aggregation: aggregate (month) · Staged: no · Main source: Finance / ERP.

Field	Dataset	Type
`cost`	cost_event	decimal
`cost_function`	cost_event	string
`event_date`	cost_event	date
`period_start`	financials	date
`revenue`	financials	decimal

Example SQL (Postgres)

SELECT (CAST((SELECT COALESCE(SUM(cost), 0) FROM cost_event WHERE event_date >= :period_start AND event_date <= :period_end AND cost_function = 'research_development') AS DOUBLE PRECISION) / NULLIF(((SELECT COALESCE(SUM(revenue), 0) FROM financials WHERE period_start >= :period_start AND period_start <= :period_end)), 0)) AS rd_as_of_revenue

From an agent: with the GASP MCP server, call lookup_metric({ "name": "R&D as % of Revenue" }) or generate_query({ "metric": "R&D as % of Revenue", "adapter": "<your adapter JSON>" }).

Benchmarks

SaaS typical: 15-25%

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