Capitalizing the Data Warehouse

Sid Adelman and Suzan Dennis, CPA

“Assets are probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events.” FASB Concept Statement No. 6

An asset is something that will have value in future periods and the data warehouse (if it’s any good) certainly fits into that definition. Companies capitalize their ERPs and the guys with the green eyeshades don’t object. Why not the data warehouse? A number of us have long maintained that the DW is a real asset that has significant value to an organization - some of us even believe that the DW will make the difference between a company living and dying. Since the DW provides value in future periods, the DW represents an intangible asset that should be capitalized on a company’s balance sheet along with the tangible assets: cash, account receivable, inventory, plant and machinery.

Current and future accounting rules The current financial accounting rules are heavily criticized as not reflecting the true value of IT assets such as those of the ERPs and data warehouses. Under the current rules of the Financial Accounting Standards number 141 and 142, a data warehouse, as an intangible asset could be capitalized at its fair value only when a company with an internally built data warehouse is acquired by another corporation. Thus, the CIO would be rewarded for the managing a high value asset only when the data warehouse has been purchased.

Today, a company with an internally created data warehouse would be shown as an intangible asset only at its capitalized historical cost. This historical cost probably does not capture the fair value of the completed project nor does it capture all the costs associated with the data warehouse. The current accounting system in the United States allows one company to show a high value on the data warehouse that was purchased and a second company to have a lower value on a data warehouse that was internally developed. Thus, the company is not able to reflect the fair value created by the successful implementation of an internally developed data warehouse.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is working on a new standard to address the comparability issue between companies that have purchased data warehouses with companies that have built a data warehouse internally. The first step is a proposal to disclose in the footnotes of the financial statements the quantitative value of the substantially built up intangibles in a business. The eventual goal is to book the intangible assets at their fair value to allow the financial statements of different entities to be comparable and, to address our interests, for companies to accurately reflect the asset value of a data warehouse.

The FASB is also integrating the US accounting rules to the International Accounting Standards (IAS). Over 90 countries have moved to the IAS standards in the past year including all of Europe. The IAS standard No 39 requires the company to currently book the data warehouse at the fair value of the assets, and now the data warehouse must be carried on the company’s books. In most situations, this rewards management for successful efforts in creating and maintaining a data warehouse.

What did the DW cost? The expenses for any DW will vary widely. The cost will be dependent on the size of the database, the number of users, the complexity and quality of the source data, the software tools employed, the need for consultants and contractors, the capabilities of the team, and how well the system is supported and maintained.

It’s necessary to understand how costs will be accounted for. Some costs will be expensed immediately, and others amortized over the expected life of the system. Costs will appear in different accounts and all these factors will become important when the actual total costs are tabulated and the DW is capitalized.

The accounting approach to classifying the costs as current expenses or capitalized as assets is a three characteristic definition. If the associated costs fail any of the characteristics, then the cost should be expensed under current accounting rules. The first characteristic is future benefits. The future benefits are defined as the capacity, singly or in combination with other assets, to contribute directly or indirectly to future net cash inflows. The second characteristic is whether the enterprise has control. Control is defined as the ability to both derive future benefits and to deny that ability to others. The third characteristic is that the cost accumulation is based on a past event or transaction that gives rise to the future benefit.

Hardware - For the data warehouse, you will need CPUs, disks, networks, and workstations. Some vendors, such as Teradata usually bundle the hardware along with the RDBMS and the DW Appliances bundle the hardware, operating system, RDBMS. If existing desktops and laptops are adequate to support end users, no additional costs should be charged, but if upgrades or new machines are required, the additional costs should be assigned and depreciated over the expected life of the system. Three years is often used as the expected life, even though the system will probably last longer. The calculation is the cost to purchase or upgrade times the number of anticipated users. The cost of the hardware should always be capitalized.

Software - The data warehouse always needs an RDBMS. Most installations employ end user access and analysis tools such as Business Objects, Brio, Cognos, Crystal Decisions, and MicroStrategy. Many installations choose an extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool such as Informatica or DataStage rather than writing their own ETL code. Add-ons with the ETL tools could include additional costs for each different type of source file or target database. These tools are often priced based on the operating system and size of the machine. Additional tools are often needed for data cleansing and performance monitoring. Initial software costs should always be capitalized.

Internal Staff - The fully burdened rate (salary plus taxes, benefits, support costs, etc.) for the IT folks associated with the project should be included in the project cost. Business personnel are usually not included in calculations for personnel costs, but any help desk staff in the business organization should be. Include the fully burdened costs of the people on your project and capitalize these costs

Consultants and Contractors - Consultants are engaged to help determine requirements, help plan the project, create the scope agreement, cost justify the project, help select the software, and establish the initial and long-term architectures. Consultants are typically more expensive than contractors but usually don’t remain on projects as long. Contractors are brought in to supplement technical skills, specifically for software such as the DBMS. The cost for contractors will be dependent on how deficient the organization is in the required skills, how fast the organization needs the system implemented, and how long it will take to transfer skills once the implementation is complete. The costs of the consultants and contractors for the initial implementation and for any major enhancements (not maintenance) should be capitalized.

Training – You could make a case for the value of training, the intellectual capital, the knowledge and the increased capability of those who went through the training becoming an asset that would have value in future periods but because of employee turnover and other factors accountants are reticent to claim the value of training as an asset. Training costs should be expensed as they are incurred and should not be capitalized.

Training fails the control test for being a capitalized asset. There are past expenditures for training and probable future benefits, but without enforceable work contracts there is no entity control of specifically trained labor.

Operations and system administration - This is a grab bag of roles and costs including monitoring the system performance, executing backups, administering security, administering the metadata repository, dealing with the vendors, and assigning charge-backs. The initial costs for operations and systems administration should be capitalized. The on-going costs of both operations and system administration should not be capitalized unless there are major enhancements (since this represents day-to-day operations and not probable future benefits).

Capitalizing data quality improvements - Every data warehouse implementation demands improvements in the quality of the data. The source files far too often contain data elements that are outside the valid values, data that is missing, incorrect data types, data that violates business rules, i.e., men getting hysterectomies, date of birth in the 22nd century, non-unique values for primary keys, and incorrect data types. Most of this data must be cleansed before it’s loaded into the data warehouse. Software is available to profile the data which would provide information on most aspects of the quality of the data and some software is specific to cleaning up names and addresses. CRM data could now be de-duplicated, names and addresses would be corrected, deceased customers would be deleted, and customers would have activity codes that are more correct. This is

an expensive process but the result is data that is much more valuable to the organization. The value comes from fewer wasted mailings, fewer customer interactions that cannot result in sales, more customized and more appropriate marketing, and a much better image of the organization to the customer. The improvements in data quality should result in more sales, more cross-selling, greater profitability per customer interaction, and lower mailing and printing costs. For the DW, the improvements in data quality will mean far less checking and rechecking of results. The improved data quality will mean that the organization’s strategic and tactical decisions will be supported by better information and those making the decisions will be more likely to take action on results they trust. The value of the improved CRM data will be realized in future periods and should therefore be considered as an asset and the following costs should be capitalized.

Data quality software purchase Consulting Internal personnel costs

Capitalizing metadata - Capturing and maintaining metadata is an expensive effort but it is generally recognized as a critical success factor for a data warehouse. Business metadata should include data definitions, domains (valid values), business rules, uniqueness, data source, security, timeliness, and the owner of the data. Some metadata can be generated automatically from the modeling tools, the ETL tools, and the BI tools, but architecting how the metadata will be captured and maintained is not simple. It will require smart internal people or perhaps consulting help. In addition, an organization may choose to purchase metadata products. Metadata will be valuable to analysts, report developers and report recipients since the metadata will reduce their efforts to research and gather the data. It will also be valuable giving them a better understanding of the results. CRM metadata capture codes indicating a customer’s value, previous purchases (retailing), average balances (banking). CRM for law enforcement would have codes for a person’s violence level, an insurance company would have codes representing the likelihood of a customer discontinuing paying their premiums. Metadata will have value in future periods (as long as it’s properly maintained) and should therefore be considered an asset and the following costs should be capitalized:

Metadata software purchase Consulting Internal personnel costs

Data Modeling – The effort to develop the data models to support the DW should be capitalized but not the on-going maintenance of the models. .

Performance and Availability – To support the SLAs for performance and availability will require new processes and procedures, possibly new monitoring software, possibly more hardware, and possibly some consulting and contracting effort. The costs for this area should be capitalized but not any on-going maintenance.

What costs can be capitalized and disclosed? Cost accumulations that have probable future benefit, controlled by the enterprise, and are based on a past transaction or event will be capitalized under the current accounting rules.

What should be disclosed in the footnotes to the financial statements about the intangible asset? Possible qualitative and quantitative disclosures about unrecognized intangibles are

1. Major classes of intangibles assets and their characteristics.2. Expenditures to develop and maintain.3. Values of these assets.4. Significant events that change the anticipated future benefits arising from

intangible assets.

Is the value of the DW greater than its cost? The real value (the accountants may call it fair value) of the database can be significantly greater than the costs. The new proposals for fair value measurements, for accounting purposes creates a means to fairly value an asset or liability.

If observable (quoted) market prices for identical or similar assets or liabilities are not available, the estimate of fair value should be determined based on the results of multiple other valuation techniques. Valuation techniques consistent with a market approach (for example, multiples based on prices from market transactions involving reasonably comparable items), an income approach (for example, a present value technique or option-pricing model), and, if applicable, a cost approach (current replacement or reproduction cost, adjusted to reflect the current condition of an asset) should be used whenever information necessary to apply those techniques is available. For data warehouse, the market approach would use the purchase price of other acquired data warehouses. The income approach would use present value of an estimated cash stream attributed to the data warehouse. The cost approach would use an estimated recreation cost.

The objective of fair value measurement for accounting purposes is to estimate the single agreed-upon exchange price between willing parties in a transaction other than a forced liquidation or distress sale. The willing parties are all hypothetical marketplace participants (buyers and sellers) that have utility for the item being measured and that are willing and able to transact, having the legal and financial ability to do so. For a company’s data warehouse, potential participants would be companies that are savvy and not affiliated with the company owning the data warehouse, with financial means and qualifications to buy the property and having full knowledge of the data warehouse. An outside and disinterested party, possibly a data warehouse consultant, could provide an analysis of what the data warehouse is worth.

Amortizing the DW The data warehouse is amortized over the remaining useful life of the asset.  The life of the data warehouse is not an item of certainty.  Like many uncertain lives of assets such as oil deposits and the life of a utility plant, the life of a data warehouse could be determined using actuarial methods. The inputs into the calculation will be the lifecycle of the products, customers, vendors, and industry. However, it is more likely that an organization would use an amortization schedule that would conform to the norms they use for application package or ERP amortization. 

What about the costs of expanding and maintaining the DW? Expansion could include adding new source databases, adding additional data warehouse subject areas, new applications such as HR, adding whole new departments of users, or expanding toward an enterprise data warehouse. The costs of expanding the data warehouse should be evaluated under the same capitalization tests as the original implementation. If the expansion does provide future benefits – and the example above surely would, then the costs should be capitalized.

Maintenance would include running the ETL processes, monitoring the quality of the data and ongoing data cleansing, monitoring and tuning the databases, supporting the security requirements, adding and deleting users, user support, installing new releases of software, and addressing software bugs and installing fixes. If the maintenance just supports the original implementation and adds no new value, these costs cannot be capitalized.

Selling the concept of fair valuation to your organization Why should senior management be interested in fairly valuing the DW or in capitalizing it as an asset? As mentioned above, the current accounting rules actually require this capitalization but in addition, by capitalizing the DW assets, corporations are much more likely to commit the resources and the management attention that are so critical to the success of a data warehouse. For corporations wanting to minimize their expenses in the current period, capitalizing allows them to amortize the value of the DW over future periods and not have to absorb all the expenses right away. By capitalizing and amortizing the cost of the DW, organizations are forced to capture the true costs of each major DW project and are thus able to more accurately compare the estimated with the actual costs. This then leads to a more exact and repeatable method of DW cost estimation with fewer projects that are not cost justified. The idea of capitalizing the DW should appeal to the CIO who wants to be able to get the budget needed for the DW projects and infrastructure, to the CFO who wants to fairly represent the corporation’s expenses, profits, and assets, and to the CEO who wants the company’s stock price to include value that could otherwise be underestimated.

Totally Teen Togs – (T3)

T3 has 157 stores. Its target market is teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 17. This is a very fashion oriented business and fashions are time dependent and season dependent. T3 has four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall (Back to School), and Winter (Holiday). Success in this business requires knowledge of the customer base, current and future fashions, inventory, and what the suppliers can provide. Time delay in any of these areas means loss of a marketing and advertising advantage, lower sales, and stale inventory.

T3 has a loyalty program with an estimated 68% of their clientele as members. Information about the members includes name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, and the last two year of purchase history. In addition, there is a Supplier database, a SKU database, and an Inventory database. T3 is considering implementing a DW primarily for marketing including market segmentation, promotions, and cross-selling and they are attempting to cost justify the effort. The CIO and the CFO are aware of the new accounting guidelines and they would like to understand how the DW could be capitalized.

Data QualityThe quality of the data is substandard, especially the names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. T3 knows that any marketing program will need a much-improved level of data quality. If the quality of this data is poor, members will be placed in the wrong marketing segment, they will be receiving inappropriate promotional material, and the promotion will miss those who should be receiving it.

MetadataThere are differences of opinion on what certain fields mean. The headings on the report are not clear as to their meaning. Sizes are sometimes expressed with US size designations and sometimes with the European size. The Marketing Department is often reticent to take action because they neither trust nor fully understand what the reports are telling them. Clean, understandable, and timely metadata is required for the marketing effort.

Performance and AvailabilityMarketing has tried to pull data for promotions but the performance of the queries has been terrible. Each query has had to search the Member database looking for specific profile of SKUs. The design of the databases resulted in inefficient queries that took many hours. If the results were wrong or inappropriate, a new long-running query would have to be rerun. Since marketing always needs to be able to respond quickly, the existing database designs were suboptimal and performance was grossly inadequate. When the databases were being updated, it was not possible to run reports or queries. The Marketing Department had to wait. To support a marketing initiative, the databases would have to be redesigned.

InfrastructureThis new DW initiative will require an additional DBMS license, new hardware, new software for ETL and for queries and reports. Since T3 does not have staff skilled in the new tools nor in DW database design, contractors and consultants will be required for some period of time. A number of internal staff will be committed to the project.

Capitalizing these CostsThe CFO determined that all of the costs associated with data quality, metadata, performance and availability, and with building the infrastructure could be capitalized since T3 planned to have a continual and active promotional program coming out of the Marketing department and that all of these initiatives would have value in future periods.

References – Suzan

References Financial Accounting Standards Board, Concept No. 6

Financial Accounting Standards No. 141 and 142

Exposure Draft No. 1201-100, June 23, 2004 for Fair Value Measurements

Goodwill, Fair Value and Impairment,

Glossary Amortization – The reduction in a capital account to reflect the decrease in value of an asset. The offset of this account in an expense item on the income statement.

Capitalization – The cost accumulation of expenditures that that future benefits, the enterprise controls, and are a result of a past transaction or event.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management

ERP – Enterprise Resource Program, e.g., SAP, PeopleSoft

FAS – Financial Accounting Standards promulgated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

FASB- Financial Accounting Standards Board authorized by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

IAS – International Accounting Standards promulgated by the International Accounting Standards Board in London, England.

RDBMS – Relational Database Management System

BiosSid Adelman is a principal in Sid Adelman & Associates, an organization specializing in planning and implementing data warehouses, in data warehouse and BI assessments, and in establishing effective data architectures and strategies. He is a regular speaker at DW conferences. Sid chairs the “Ask the Experts” column on www.dmreview.com. He is a frequent contributor to journals that focus on data warehouse. He co-authored Data Warehouse Project Management and is the principal author on Impossible Data Warehouse Situations with Solutions from the Experts. His new book, Data Strategy is scheduled for publication this year. He can be reached at 818 783 9634 or sidadelman@aol.com. His web site is www.sidadelman.com.

Suzan Dennis, CPA is the managing partner of Dennis & Dennis, LLP, a full service CPA firm in Rancho Bernardo, California. She is the program adviser on the UCSD accounting and certified fraud examiner certification programs. She has taught various levels of accounting and currently teaches cost accounting and forensic accounting at UCSD. She is a regular speaker for the California Society of CPAs and has developed two courses: Goodwill, Fair Value and Impairment and Know Your Client’s Numbers. Suzan has a Masters of Science in Accountancy from San Diego State University as well as a BBA in accounting and a BA in Economics from the University of Washington. She can be reached at 858-487-7232 or SuzanDen@aol.com. Her website is www.dennisanddennis.com.