Software Cost Capitalisation Evidence Director — SaaS Platforms

The mandate

Engineering time is capitalised through project codes that do not distinguish preliminary exploration, technological feasibility, feature development, maintenance, security remediation, platform migration or internal tooling. Cloud configuration and implementation costs are mixed with hosting fees, while abandoned initiatives remain active until annual impairment review. Audit cannot connect sampled payroll and vendor charges to stage, intended use, authorisation or release evidence.

The engagement deliverable is a Software Cost Evidence Architecture covering software sold as a service, internal-use platforms and hosted implementation arrangements. It will define project and unit of account, stage gates, eligible activities, labour and vendor attribution, general-and-administrative exclusions, suspension, readiness for intended use, amortisation, abandonment, impairment triggers and disclosure reconciliation.

Milestone one in week three segments the project population and historical exposure. Week seven completes policy decision trees, engineering evidence and cost-allocation standards. A portfolio reperformance and shadow close conclude milestone three in week twelve. Week seventeen brings accepted accounting papers, controls, project-owner training and an unseen platform-modernisation case as final output.

Acceptance requires Engineering to reproduce project objective, authorisation, development stage, release and abandonment facts; Payroll and Procurement to trace labour and invoices; and Finance to reperform eligibility, allocation and amortisation samples. The Chief Accounting Officer signs only after client owners resolve twelve unfamiliar work items without consultant coding or retrospective management labels.

The client will provide roadmaps, architecture decisions, repositories and release records, time and payroll data, vendor statements, cloud contracts, project approvals, ledgers, policies, impairment analyses, controls and audit findings. Management retains accounting conclusions and engineering facts. Product strategy, software design, code review, tax advice, valuation, timesheet implementation, system procurement and audit opinion are excluded.

Why this is external work

Engineering systems describe how code changes, while accounting requires evidence of why work occurred and when the asset became usable. External specialists can translate those lifecycle facts into controlled financial evidence without judging code quality, setting roadmaps, engineering time records retroactively or making management’s accounting election.

What you will own

• Segment product, platform, infrastructure, security, internal-tool and hosted-implementation projects by applicable accounting model.
• Define preliminary, feasibility, development, testing, maintenance, operation and abandonment stage evidence for each project family.
• Trace employee time, contractors, cloud configuration and vendor costs to eligible activities and authorised units of account.
• Govern stage changes, scope expansion, suspension, intended-use readiness, release, amortisation and impairment triggers.
• Reperform representative projects and quantify unsupported capitalisation, missed assets, expense timing and disclosure effects.
• Exercise a security rewrite, failed prototype, shared platform, phased release, abandoned feature and hosted configuration.
• Transfer the architecture after a client-led close and accepted unfamiliar engineering-work classification set.

Candidate qualifications

• Led US GAAP software-cost accounting for a SaaS, cloud or product-engineering company with substantial development spend.
• Distinguished software-to-be-sold, internal-use and hosted implementation models across fast-changing technical environments.
• Connected engineering lifecycle evidence, payroll, vendors, releases and abandonments to controlled accounting decisions.
• Governed labour allocation, stage gates, intended use, amortisation and impairment without relying on retrospective labels.
• Maintained boundaries among accounting judgement, product strategy, architecture, code quality, valuation and independent audit.
• Delivered evidence models that engineering and Finance sustained after specialist engagement closure.

Non-negotiables

• The named director must lead Tel Aviv engineering workshops and the final platform-modernisation acceptance case.
• Direct SaaS or cloud software-cost accounting experience is required; generic fixed-asset policy work is insufficient.
• No current relationship may involve significant cloud providers, implementation vendors, valuation firms or external auditors.
• Management retains accounting and engineering decisions; product design, code review, tax, valuation and audit remain excluded.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe engineering work whose project label suggested capitalisation but underlying activity did not.
2. 49 words maximum. How did you evidence intended-use readiness for a continuously deployed cloud platform?
3. 49 words maximum. Which security or migration activity would you include in the final classification test?