The Importance of Intangible Assets

12.2 Auto Parts, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Considering Materiality When Evaluating Accounting Policies and Footnote Disclosures

The FASB accounting codification is an advanced system that allows certified public accountants and other users to quickly access non-SEC authoritative content, perform relevant research, and submit timely and appropriate feedback. The FASB codification research system is a real-time, online database that allows users to access codification whose primary aim is to simplify the accessibility and structure of all authoritative generally accepted accounting principles, reduce the time and effort invested when researching accounting-related issues, decrease the risk of non-compliance with the generally accepted accounting principles, provide access to all authoritative information from a single place, facilitate the updating of accounting standards, and foster research and convergence efforts for the FASB (Wiley, 2017).

Since 2002, Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) have been working toward “convergence” of US General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). They have made significant progress in efforts to converge critical accounting standards such as those dealing with revenue recognition, financial instruments and leases. Once these projects are complete, the "era" of convergence will be at an end. Nevertheless, the benefits for investors of eventually getting to consistently applied, high-quality, globally accepted accounting

recognition requirements in U.S. GAAP are different from those in IFRSs and both are considered in need of improvement. U.S. GAAP comprises broad revenue recognition concepts and numerous industry or transaction-specific requirements that can result in different accounting for economically similar transactions. Although, IFRSs contain less guidance on revenue recognition, its two main standards IAS 18 Revenue and IAS 11 Construction Contracts can be difficult to understand and apply beyond simple transactions. Also, they lack guidance on important topics such as revenue recognition for multiple-element arrangements.

Intangible Assets were part of the 2006 “memorandum of understanding” between FASB and IASB. Eventually, intangibles assets were cut from the list of changes to be made. In future years the problems will have to be addressed. As far as research and development costs, IAS 38 will likely be fully adopted. One major problem still being faced is the revaluation of intangible assets. Under GAAP, revaluation is strictly prohibited. Under IFRs, revaluation

The reporting of intangible assets is one such area where they are some similarities in using the guidelines of iGAAP or U.S. GAAP but they also have some significant differences between

Following Beaver & Ryan (2005), we refer to this as conditional conservatism, also referred to as income statement conservatism (Ball, Kothari, & Robin, 2000; Basu, 1997), ex post conservatism (Pope & Walker, 2003; Richardson & Tinaikar, 2004), and news-dependent conservatism (Chandra, 2011). Notable examples of such conservatism include the application of the lower of cost or market rule accounting for inventory, and the impairment accounting for long-lived tangible and intangible assets. This definition is in contrast to that of Unconditional conservatism, also often referred to as balance sheet conservatism (Beaver & Ryan, 2005), ex post conservatism (Pope & Walker, 2003; Richardson & Tinaikar, 2004), and news-independent conservatism (Chandra,

Understand the classes of intangibles (internally-generated and purchased) and how to account for them Understand a special case of intangible – research and development, and how to account for them Understand a special case of intangible – goodwill, and how to account for them

The globalization of markets over the past 50 years has led to the demand for increasingly comparable financial statements across countries. In response to this demand, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) was formed with the purpose of developing a set of high quality global accounting standards. Although a majority of developed markets have adopted the international standards, the United States has not. One reason for the delay in adoption is that many of the standards are very similar. However, there are also several key differences between the two. Presently, the United States Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the IASB have

A company’s resources include two types: tangible and intangible. The former is asset that can be observed and counted, such as, office furniture, production equipment, computer, and warehouse, etc. Unlikely, the intangible resources are assets that are rooted deeply in the company’s history, accumulate over time, and are relatively difficult for competitors to learn and copy, such as brand, intellectual property and reputation, etc.

If markets were liquid and transparent for all assets and liabilities, fair value accounting clearly would be reliable information useful in the decision making process. However, because many assets and liabilities do not have an active market, the inputs and methods for estimating their fair value are more subjective and, therefore, the valuations less reliable. Management bias, whether intentional or unintentional,

If an intangible asset is not able to meet either of these criteria, it should be recognized as an expense rather than being capitalized to the statement of profit or loss when it incurs. IAS 38 therefore specifically prohibits recognizing internally generated goodwill, customer lists, publishing titles, brands, start-up costs, mastheads and training costs etc.

Although it is non-cash expense, the acknowledgment of depreciation illustrates the loss (decline) in fixed assets value (About, 2010). It is charged against gross profit, which gives an edge in the precision to the net income reported. According to Ben (2007) Income statement profit is relied on for the computation of tax, dividends and investment policies making it more convincing that it does reflects the truth in the entity’s performance. The Keating (1999) journal further expands on the essential of depreciation recognition against profit, stating that it gives a more effective ‘internal decision making and control’ within the entity. While Scot (2004) argues that ‘The depreciation/amortization method, the useful life and the salvage value are all subjective decisions.’ Although this is true; however, depreciation accounts for an insight into what cannot be physically seen but is known to affect profit. Overall, Dickinson concluded that – ‘in other words, every appreciation of assets is a profit & every depreciation is a loss’ (Mac Neal, 1970). Dickinson gives the impression that the physical and non-physical changes in assets, has to be recognised to affect profit in the income statement.

AASB 138 defines intangible assets as “identifiable non-monetary assets without physical substance”. Such assets include but are not limited to goodwill, trademarks, patents and research and development. AASB 138 Intangible Assets has been implemented to prescribe the accounting treatment for intangible assets that have not been specifically dealt with in any other standard. Therefore, this standard only applies to intangible assets that have not been previously dealt with. Furthermore, it can be established that this standard is an example of normative accounting theories because the standard prescribes what should be done, rather than predicts what people may do. According to AASB 138 Intangible Assets, in order for an asset to be recognised in the financial statements it must meet specific criteria. The required criterion states that the asset must be identifiable, the entity has control of the asset, future economic benefits are probable and the cost of the asset can be measured reliably.

One of these is with regards to goodwill and intangible assets with identifiable useful lives.