In a recent conversation with a Program Management Office (PMO) for a large scale, global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) deployment, we discussed the accounting of employee salaries. Of the entire deployment team, most all salary costs were capitalized over the length of the project and were depreciated.
However, the auditor said that the Change and Learning team had to be expensed in the fiscal year that they worked, and not be capitalized or depreciated. This seems inaccurate to me, as the training provided to employees should be viewed as a future asset. Once an employee learns a knowledge, skill or ability – they should retain that for the life of their employment – which is why a corporation invests in individual learning and development.
Does your accounting perceive change and learning as a current expense or a future asset?
