Accounting for the recognition of information as an asset

Abstract

Tangible assets as property, plant and equipment continue to be important factors in the production of both goods and services. However, their relative importance has decreased through time as the importance of intangible, knowledge-based assets has increased. This shift in importance has raised a number of accounting questions critical for recognizing the information as an asset in nowadays financial statements. Attempts to recognize “information” as an asset in the financial statements has lead to an increased awareness of why these invisible valuable recourses are not yet recognized. This paper aims to develop a model based on a three-circled set of criteria for the pre-measurement phase of an asset recognition process. This model should be applicable to all types of assets but we mainly focus on information as an intangible based asset. The three-circled set of asset recognition criteria presented in this paper breaks free from the narrow definitional and rule based perspective of accounting epistemology to offer an alternative view based on the recognition of artefacts.