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January 22, 2009

What is an intangible asset?

An intangible asset is an asset that you cannot touch. Examples of intangible assets include  copyrights, patents, mailing lists, trademarks, brand names, domain names, and so on.

Often the market value of an intangible asset is far greater than the market value of a company’s tangible assets such as its buildings and equipment.

Accounting principles require that intangible assets be reported on a company’s balance sheet at cost or less. Since many intangible assets are not purchased, they may not have a reportable cost. As a result, many valuable intangible assets are not even reported as assets on the company’s balance sheet.

Learn more about Accounting Principles.

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Comments

7 Responses to “What is an intangible asset?”

  1. JAMAR on January 24th, 2009 11:33 pm

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  2. Mohammad Reza Mazloumi on February 10th, 2009 5:11 am

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  3. mayur on May 11th, 2009 8:38 am

    should intangible assets be included on the balance sheet?

  4. khaja shariff on July 2nd, 2009 6:25 am

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  5. ACoach on July 2nd, 2009 3:43 pm

    There are more than 1,000 accounting terms and their definitions under the Dictionary tab of AccountingCoach.com.

  6. emcie on September 9th, 2009 7:31 am

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  7. Shenna on November 3rd, 2009 4:43 pm

    Are intangible assets depreciated?

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