software to be sold, leased, or marketed

This subtopic governs how a software vendor accounts for the costs of producing physical copies of software to be sold, leased, or otherwise marketed. Costs of duplicating the software, documentation, and training materials from the product masters and of physically packaging the product for distribution are capitalized as inventory on a unit-specific basis (330-985-25-1). Those capitalized costs are charged to cost of sales when revenue from the sale of the related units is recognized (330-985-40-1).

ASC 985-10 is the Overall subtopic of the Software Topic, which sets the scope umbrella for the industry-specific software guidance (costs of software to be sold, leased, or marketed; inventory; intangibles—goodwill and other; provision for losses; cost of sales and services; and research and development). The Topic provides only incremental industry-specific guidance—entities within its scope must also apply all other applicable GAAP (985-10-15-1). It applies to all entities and to computer software to be sold, leased, or otherwise marketed as a separate product or as part of a product or process (985-10-15-2 through 15-3).