Ann: Appendix 4C - quarterly, page-23

I'm not a fan of companies capitalizing software costs. Salaries for IT staff are part of running the business. How much is really "investment" and how much is just the cost of keep the systems up to date? It's very arbitrary. I've seen companies like EPD where they allocate a chunk of IT costs every year to "investments" rather than expensing it. After a few years of profits that are inflated because of non-expensing of IT costs, they then take a massive writedown on the accumulated intangibles. The best measure I reckon is net cash in, regardless of whether it's "operating" or "investment".