Goodwill (accounting) in the context of "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States)"

In financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can be converted into cash (although cash itself is also considered an asset).The balance sheet of a firm records the monetary value of the assets owned by that firm. It covers money and other valuables belonging to an individual or to a business.Total assets can also be called the balance sheet total.

Assets can be grouped into two major classes: tangible assets and intangible assets. Tangible assets contain various subclasses, including current assets and fixed assets. Current assets include cash, inventory, accounts receivable, while fixed assets include land, buildings and equipment.Intangible assets are non-physical resources and rights that have a value to the firm because they give the firm an advantage in the marketplace. Intangible assets include goodwill, intellectual property (such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, computer programs), and financial assets, including financial investments, bonds, and companies' shares.

An intangible asset is an asset that lacks physical substance. Examples are patents, copyright, franchises, goodwill, trademarks, and trade names, reputation, R&D, know-how, organizational capital as well as any form of digital asset such as software and data. This is in contrast to physical assets (machinery, buildings, etc.) and financial assets (government securities, etc.).

Intangible assets are usually very difficult to value. Today, a large part of the corporate economy (in terms of net present value) consists of intangible assets, reflecting the growth of information technology (IT) and organizational capital. Specifically, each dollar of IT has been found to be associated with and increase in firm market valuation of over $10, compared with an increase of just over $1 per dollar of investment in other tangible assets. Furthermore, firms that both make organizational capital investments and have a large computer capital stock have disproportionately higher market valuations.

Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of all value for which a group or entity is responsible. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as complex process or manufacturing plants, infrastructure, buildings or equipment) and to intangible assets (such as intellectual property, goodwill or financial assets). Asset management is a systematic process of developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner (including all costs, risks, and performance attributes).

Theory of asset management primarily deals with the periodic matter of improving, maintaining or in other circumstances assuring the economic and capital value of an asset over time. The term is commonly used in engineering, the business world, and public infrastructure sectors to ensure a coordinated approach to the optimization of costs, risks, service/performance, and sustainability. The term has traditionally been used in the financial sector to describe people and companies who manage investments on behalf of others. Those include, for example, investment managers who manage the assets of a pension fund.

In accounting, amortization is a method of obtaining the expenses incurred by an intangible asset arising from a decline in value as a result of use or the passage of time. Amortization is the acquisition cost minus the residual value of an asset, calculated in a systematic manner over an asset's useful economic life. Depreciation is a corresponding concept for tangible assets.

Methodologies for allocating amortization to each accounting period are generally the same as those for depreciation. However, many intangible assets such as goodwill or certain brands may be deemed to have an indefinite useful life and are therefore not subject to amortization (although goodwill is subjected to an impairment test every year).

In accounting, an impaired asset is an asset which has a market value less than the value listed on its owner's balance sheet.

According to U.S. accounting rules (known as US GAAP), the value of an asset is impaired when the sum of estimated future cash flows from that asset is less than its book value. At this point an impairment loss should be recognized, which is done by taking the difference between the fair market value (FMV) and the book value and recording this amount as the loss. This basically records the asset as if it were being acquired brand new at its FMV, recording this as its new book value. This is a common occurrence for goodwill where a company will purchase a target company for more than the value of its net assets. Under US GAAP, goodwill is tested annually for impairment.