With the modern corporation investing more in intangible assets, the issue of appropriate accounting for these assets is very much at the fore and formally on the agendas of accounting standards boards. Some commentators advocate that internally generated intangible assets should be booked to the balance sheet, just like tangible assets. This paper explains that this apparently straightforward solution is not so simple. There are subtleties that, when recognised, indicate that such accounting would often make both balance sheets and income statements less informative. In response, the paper outlines an accounting for intangible assets that preserves, indeed enhances, the information conveyed by both the balance sheet and the income statement and satisfies the financial reporting objective of providing information to investors about ‘the amount, timing, and uncertainty of future cash flows’.

中文翻译：

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无形资产会计：深思熟虑

随着现代企业更多地投资于无形资产，对这些资产进行适当会计处理的问题非常重要，并正式列入会计准则委员会的议程。一些评论员主张内部产生的无形资产应该像有形资产一样记入资产负债表。本文解释说，这个看似简单的解决方案并不那么简单。有一些微妙之处表明，当被认可时，此类会计通常会使资产负债表和损益表的信息量减少。作为回应，该文件概述了无形资产的会计核算，它保留了，实际上增强了资产负债表和损益表所传达的信息，并满足了向投资者提供有关“金额，