Intangible assets are assets that the company owns and that cannot be physically perceived. However, they are considered assets because they help the company produce an economic return through them. Examples of intangible assets can be Brand value, knowledge of work methodologies, patents or the goodwill.
These intangible assets make up a large part of the market value of a company or brand. For all this, accounting now incorporates these elements as assets capable of generating benefits in the General Accounting Plan.
Classification of intangible assets
The importance of intangible assets causes them to be classified according to different parameters:
- According to the possibility of having their own identity
- Identifiable: trademarks or rights
- Unidentifiable: own advertising
- According to your form of incorporation
- Acquired: concessions or franchises
- Developed by the organization: development or organization expenses
- Depending on whether they can be sold separately
- Sold separately: brands
- Not salable separately: development or advertising expenses
- According to its legal life span
- Limited: patents or concessions
- Perpetual: brands
- According to the possibility of accounting for them:
- Recordable in accounting: organizational expenses
- Not accounting for accounting: self-generated business key