PROJECT REPORT
(Submitted for the Degree of B.com Honours in Accountancy and Finance under the University of Calcutta.)

A Survey on Accounting & Reporting of Intangible Assets in some selected Indian companies
Submitted by Name: MAITREYEE MUKHERJEE Registration no: 043-1221-0272-10 Roll no: Name of the college: Heramba Chandra College. Supervised by Name of the supervisor: JAYANTA GHOSH Name of the college: Heramba Chandra College.

BACKGROUND: In 1494, a mathematically minded Veteran monk named Luca Pacioli published his “Summa de Arithmetica, Geometrica”, the first accounting textbook. It illustrated double-entry accounting, a system that makes the modern corporation manageable, even possible. Today, half a millennium later, Pacioli’s process, still pretty much intact, is being challenged like never before. Pacioli’s accounting system lets businesses keep track of changes in their assets. But this system deals primarily with tangible assets such as cash, inventory, investments, receivables, property, plant, and equipment. What go unrecorded are intangible assets such as quality of management, customer loyalty, information infrastructure, trade secrets, patents, goodwill, research, and, considered by some, the ultimate intangible, knowledge—a company’s intellectual capital. FASB chairman Edmund Jenkins attests, “The components of cost in a product today are largely R & D, intellectual assets, and services.” Professor James Quinn of Dartmouth College said, “Even in manufacturing, perhaps three-fourths of the value added derives from knowledge.’’ This refrain is echoed by