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Case study · CASE:intangibles/linden-peak-digital-investment-close

Release Linden Peak's digital-investment and acquisition close

Prepare an evidence controlled close package spanning acquired rights, internal R&D, alternative use, current and pending internal use software, cloud implementation, marketed software,…

Updated Aug 8, 2026 Review due Nov 8, 2026
On this page
  1. Your role and decision
  2. Evidence packet
  3. Required work
  4. Constraints
  5. Evaluation
Decision brief

Your assignment

Role: Senior accounting analyst supporting Linden Peak Instruments' controller and digital-investment steering committee

Deliverable: A controlled digital-investment close package with scope and standards-clock matrix, cost ledgers, life memo, schedules, entries, rollforwards, disclosure support, unresolved-evidence register, and release memo

Evidence basis: fictional

Visible standard

Evaluation criteria

  • technical accuracy (30%): Applies the declared scope and standards clock, recomputes amortization, cost destinations, identifiable net assets, goodwill, impairment, and class rollforwards without cross-model contamination.
  • scope and evidence (30%): Names rights, purpose, entity, period, adoption, election, unit, valuation source, and stop conditions; withholds unsupported conclusions.
  • articulation and controls (20%): Connects ledgers, entries, carrying amounts, cash/noncash movements, expense, disclosures, and review status without netting distinct events.
  • interpretation and communication (20%): Explains accounting and finance consequences without treating recognized balances as valuation, future success, or complete innovation investment.

Your role and decision

The controller will not release Linden Peak's year-end digital-investment and acquisition close until one package explains how each proposed amount entered, moved through, or remained outside the ledger. The steering committee also wants an investment view, but it has agreed that accounting recognition will not be presented as a valuation of innovation.

Evidence packet

The fictional packet includes patent and license contracts, legal invoices, laboratory time records, material requisitions, a testing-chamber engineering memo, internal-software authorization and backlog, adoption correspondence, cloud contract and vendor statement of work, training and conversion invoices, marketed-product milestones, feasibility and availability approvals, an acquisition-date valuation summary, reporting-unit assignment memo, impairment valuation extracts, prior-year rollforwards, cash disbursement detail, and draft disclosures.

Several cards are deliberately incomplete. The chamber memo lacks an approved next assignment. One software component has unresolved delivery purpose. The private-company alternative appears in a consultant slide even though Linden Peak's eligibility and election are not supplied. The valuation extract gives amounts but omits reviewer sign-off.

Required work

  1. Build a rights, purpose, transaction, entity, and period matrix before classifying costs.
  2. Prepare a standards-clock sheet that selects current or pending Subtopic 350-40 for each internal-use project and rejects blended schedules.
  3. Reconcile ordinary R&D, alternative-use, legal-right, internal-use, hosting, and marketed-software ledgers.
  4. Defend useful lives and readiness dates; prepare finite-life amortization and indefinite-life reassessment controls.
  5. Keep acquired IPR&D and post-acquisition activity distinct.
  6. Reperform the acquisition-date identifiable-net-asset and goodwill schedule; identify all supplied valuation inputs and stop on an apparent bargain purchase.
  7. Route finite-lived, indefinite-lived, and goodwill impairment work through the correct units and declared models.
  8. Reconcile class-by-class gross, accumulated amortization, impairment, and net balances with cash/noncash additions and disposals visible.
  9. Draft entries, disclosure support, and a release memo separating verified arithmetic, approved judgment, supplied facts, and conclusions withheld. The unresolved-evidence register must address each named gap: the chamber's later assignment, the software component's delivery purpose, private-company eligibility and election, and valuation reviewer sign-off.

Constraints

Use only the supplied fictional facts and the named current or pending authority records. Do not perform fair-value, legal, tax, technological-feasibility, reporting-unit, or alternative-use analysis from missing evidence. Do not apply the private-company alternatives, IAS 38, tax amortization, or industry guidance without a separately authorized scope. Workbook PASS cells confirm only their stated calculations.

Evaluation

Technical accuracy and scope/evidence control each carry 30 percent. Articulation/controls and interpretation/communication each carry 20 percent. A package is incomplete if it capitalizes by project label, blends current and pending software content, hides identifiable assets in goodwill, changes an impairment unit, or releases a valuation-dependent conclusion without evidence.