GASB Statement No. 51 Accounting and Financial Reporting for Intangible Assets Implementation Issues

GASB Statement No. 51Accounting and Financial Reporting for Intangible AssetsImplementation Issues Herbert Maguire, CPA, CGFM, MBA Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

DEFINITION For the purposes of the Statement, an intangible asset possesses ALL of the following characteristics: • Lack of physical substance • Non-financial nature • Initial useful life extends beyond a single financial reporting period

EXAMPLES OF INTANGIBLE ASSETS • Easements • Water Rights • Timber Rights • Patents • Trademarks • Computer Software

Basic Guidance All intangible assets subject to Statement 51 should be classified as capital assets

LAND USE RIGHTS Timber rights, Water rights, Mineral rights Most of these rights will not be reportable, as they are exempt from reporting under Statement 51 if they are/were acquired as a result of purchasing the land on which they exist.

Let’s Talk about SOFTWARE next.

SOFTWARE KEY TERMS • Internally Generated:software created by the government or by an entity for the government; OR a commercial software that requires more than minimal incremental effort on the part of the government to begin to achieve its expected level of service capacity • COTS (commercial off the shelf): commercial software not requiring more than minimal incremental effort to begin to achieve an expected level of service

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

SOFTWARE MODIFICATIONS Outlays associated with modification of existing software MAY require capitalization if modifications result in: • Increased functionality • Increased efficiency • Extension of useful life

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS • Reporting is required for financial periods beginning after June 30, 2009 • Retroactive reporting is required for intangible assets except internally generated assets • Historical costs of any internally generated software that will be implemented after June 30, 2009 must be captured for reporting

Amortization • Existing guidance for depreciation of capital assets generally applies to amortizing intangible assets • Intangible assets with indefinite useful lives should not be amortized

CHALLENGES • Educating stakeholders on GASB 51. • Identifying and valuing intangibles that must be capitalized • Check with Legal Counsel on patents, trademarks, rights of way, etc. • Determining useful lives and capitalization thresholds for intangible assets.

CHALLENGES • Computer software challenges: • Establishing and verifying stages of software development and their related costs • Capturing internal costs during the application development stage. • Establishing “minimal incremental effort” • Capturing capitalizable retroactive software costs • Retroactive – Can do COTS only • Prospective – Must do COTS and internal costs.

CHALLENGES • Computer software challenges (cont’d) • Identifying and capitalizing costs of major modifications or upgrades. • Addressing variety of software agreements to determine if capitalizable and how much to capitalize. • Software licenses • Upgrades • Modifications • Cloud computing • Hosting agreements

CHALLENGES • Computer software challenges (cont’d) • Business Process Reengineering costs are not capitalizable – must identify and exclude • State funding of major software applications – can bonds be floated? • Federal approval and funding of capitalizable software applications of central agencies (such as ERP systems).

CHALLENGES Excerpt from HHS DCA Letter Dated September 17, 2007 ….Statement No. 51….the general principles contained therein should be complied with for charging federal programs. …… It is not acceptable to expense all of the costs of significant software projects and charge Federal programs based upon budgetary needs to finance the projects or as costs are incurred. ….. Federal programs only benefit and should only be charged for amortization of the capitalized costs once the software programs are implemented and in use by Federal programs. States that have initiated or are planning software projects that will be allocated or billed to Federal programs, whether as a direct or an indirect cost, should submit their planned accounting and billing or allocation methodology to their cognizant DCA Regional Office for review.

CHALLENGES • Lack of OMB Circular A-87 guidance on capitalizing/amortizing intangibles. • ARRA software useful life.

RESOURCES • GASB 51 and its Basis of conclusions and examples • GASB Implementation Q&A Section • NASC GASB 51 Work Group url: http://www.nasact.org/nasc/committees/statement51/index.cfm

GASB Statement No. 51 Accounting and Financial Reporting for Intangible Assets Implementation Issues