Re: On accounting and engineering.(Slightly offtopic)

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

Adrian Hoe wrote:
> The problem with software is that when you are still using it, it has
> value on your book. The moment you stop using it, the value becomes null.

Which, as I said, just means you don't understand what accountants use
depreciation for.

Depreciation doesn't keep track of how much remaining value the software
has. Depreciation keeps track of how much of the money you spent to buy the
software was spent to make the money you made using that software this year.

If you spend $10K on a package that you use for 10 years, you depreciate it
$1K per year (in simple formulations), not because after 3 years the
software is only worth $7K. That's irrelevant. What's relevant is that if
you depreciated the entire package in the first year, you'd have an
inbalance in your profit vs expense calculations. Not all $10K of that
software purchase was spent in order for you to make the money from it the
first year. Depreciation has nothing, nada, zippo, zilch to do with how much
the thing you bought is still worth, and everything to do with how long you
use it.

You don't think accountants should tell engineers what software to use. Why
would you, as an engineer, think you should tell accountants how to control
the spending of money?

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
   ** http://images.fbrtech.com/dnew/ **

Try our EbolaBurgers...
      So tender they melt in your mouth.