Claim It or Lose It: What your CPD can learn from your tax return
If you’ve ever been caught in the mad scramble of end-of-financial-year tax preparation, you already understand the CPD problem. The deadline is looming, you’re sifting through half-remembered receipts, and you’re wondering if you can claim that dinner in April as a “work meeting” or if that subscription really counted as “professional development.”
Now swap tax returns for CPD records, and the story is the same — except the “EOFY” is 31 December, and the receipts are your learning activities.
Just like the ATO, your CPD Home isn’t interested in what you meant to keep. If it’s not logged, it’s gone.
Why Logging CPD Is Like Lodging a Tax Return
Tax law says you must lodge every year, regardless of how busy you are — and CPD is no different. Whether you’re fresh out of PGY2 or an experienced specialist, you’re expected to have your 50 hours recorded by the end of the calendar year.
And just like with taxes, there are different “categories” to satisfy — Educational Activities, Reviewing Performance, Measuring Outcomes. Miss one, and you’re non-compliant, even if your total hours look good on paper.
The Risk of Leaving It to the End
Leaving your CPD until December is the professional equivalent of turning up to your accountant on 29 June with a plastic bag full of crumpled receipts.
Memory fades fast. That excellent conference keynote? You’ll forget the date, the speaker’s name, and the one clinical pearl you wanted to apply. The lunchtime peer review that sparked a change in your practice? Without a quick note, it blurs into a hundred other ward conversations.
Unlogged activities are like unclaimed deductions: if they’re not documented, they don’t count — no matter how legitimate they were at the time.
In addition, given one of the best forms of evidence is a detailed Learning Outcome statement, not logging your activities contemporaneously is simply putting yourself at audit risk.
Finally, some activities take a while to complete - this is particularly true for Measuring Outcomes and Reviewing Performance activities - not starting soon enough is a critical error.
The ‘Receipt’ You Need for CPD
For every CPD activity, you need:
Date & duration (like the invoice date on a receipt).
Type of activity (Educational, Reviewing Performance, Measuring Outcomes).
Learning outcome — the key takeaway you can apply in practice (this is key!)
Evidence — certificates, screenshots, meeting minutes, even your own notes.
Without all four, you’re effectively missing the receipt.
Best Practice: Real-Time Logging
Smart taxpayers don’t wait until July — they file receipts in real time. You can do the same with CPD:
Log activities immediately after they happen.
Use your phone — the Osler app, notes app, or calendar — to capture the essentials before you forget. Remember you can easily take a snapshot of your certificate, the meeting agenda or the first slide of a presentation, right there on Osler.
Keep your CPD category guide handy so you know what qualifies on the spot.
Make It a Habit
Tie logging to something you already do. If you always check your messages before heading home, use that moment to upload today’s CPD. Do a weekly CPD “reconciliation” on Sunday night, the same way some people reconcile bank accounts.
The golden rule? Never let more than 48 hours pass between doing an activity and logging it.
The Payoff
Come December, you’ll be the smug equivalent of the taxpayer who strolls into their accountant’s office with a neat, colour-coded folder. No panic. No guesswork. No lost deductions — or lost CPD hours.
Even better, you’ll have a complete, searchable record of your learning, ready for audits, job applications, or that moment when you remember a pearl from last year and need to find it again.
Bottom line: CPD, like tax, rewards the organised. Do it as you go, keep your “receipts,” and you’ll never lose what you’ve earned.
Claim it — or lose it.