Case Title: The Website Launch

Your Company, MedDevice, Inc., has just received FDA 510(k) clearance of its new, cutting edge medical device which paves the way for the official product launch in a few short months. Your marketing team is tasked with the creation of all sorts of brochures, pamphlets, advertising initiatives, commercials and, most importantly, the development of a new website showcasing your Company's new product.Your Company's marketing team decides to go high-end and hires the most prominent and comprehensive website developers in the space today - Less 4 More Design. Everything is humming along fine until the first invoice comes in and lands on your Chief Financial Officer's desk for payment approval:

Less 4 More Design
Itemized Invoice
Line Item 1:	Determine Website Functionality (Order Placement, Order/Shipment Tracking)	$ 15,000.00
Line Item 2:	Purchase of Software Used to Integrate a Customer Database with the Website	$ 22,500.00
Line Item 3:	Registering the Website with Internet Search Engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing)	$ 7,500.00
Line Item 4:	Obtain and Register Internet Domain Name (www.MedDevice.com)	$ 5,000.00
Line Item 5:	Training the Company's Website Support Staff (40 Hours)	$ 25,000.00
	Total:	$ 75,000.00

Your Chief Financial Officer has never dealt with a product launch this big, so the price tag for the website costs is a little surprising. Frankly, he does not really want all this expense running through his income statement. He asks you to see if there is any relevant guidance specific to these types of activities that would allow some of the costs he is seeing on the invoice to perhaps be capitalized - he believes at least some of them will have a future benefit which is, after all, the definition of an asset!

Draft a single accounting memo discussing the accounting treatment of each of the five line items on the invoice. Specifically, should the cost be expensed as incurred or capitalized? Cite the FASB ASC guidance used in arriving at your conclusions.As in the first case, there are very definitive answers. When you find the best and most applicable topic with the ASC, you will not need to leave that topic to find all the information you need to craft a thorough memo.