Company Assets

[Dave A]

Hi Hannes

Would intellectual property count as an asset?

Sure it is. The problem is how would you value it and how (if this is your line of thinking) would you introduce it into your financials.

There is an old adage - there is no profit without a sale. That might seem obvious, but the implications are deep.

[Hannes.Gouws]

That is just what I was thinking.

How do I value it and how do I bring it onto my balance sheet?

In my case when referring to intellectual property I am referring to our in-house developed software product.

[Dave A]

How do I value it and how do I bring it onto my balance sheet?

The only way I can think of is to capitalise your development costs rather than claim these as an expense. However, I don't know if that fits in with GAAP. A serious CA will know for sure. Hopefully someone else will comment.

I'd also expect that value would attract close scrutiny before it is relied on as a realistic value for securities purposes (comes back to the fair market value in a sale situation).

Which raises the question - Why do you want to bring it onto your balance sheet anyway?