tely and measured reliably;
The technical feasibility of the product or process can be demonstrated;
The entity intends to produce and market, or use, the product or process;
The existence of a market for the product or process or its usefulness to the entity, if it is to be used internally, can be demonstrated;
Adequate resources exist, or their availability can be demonstrated, to complete the project and market or use the product or process.
FRS-13 also requires that development costs in excess of the likely future economic benefits from the R & D are expensed even if they meet the above criteria. To the extent the criteria above are not met, FRS-13 requires development costs to be expensed.
The above criteria are mainly concerned with the probability of future economic benefits. Determining this possibility, most of the time, requires judgment. Not as harsh as the requirement within the USA where research and development expenditure must be expensed as incurred, with the less conservative New Zealand treatment, firms are given the scope of judgment, as to determine which R & D costs to capitalized and period over which capitalized costs were amortized, and the timing and amounts of write downs for impairment. However, with this scope of judgment, financial statement preparers might use R & D accounting opportunistically as a tool for managing accounting numbers to present an overly optimistic view of the firm's prospects, especially when management is remunerated on the basis of accounting earnings. This might have happened with Trading Company (NZ) Ltd and Food Barn Ltd. Their decision to write off the assets (which were recognized in previous periods) obviously arises as a result of revaluations. But
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