Why BIM data is worth less on the balance sheet than the industry thinks

Summary

BIM data can be recognised on the balance sheet, but almost always only at what it cost to produce. That is often a small fraction of the value the industry attributes to it. “Data is the new gold” is a claim about what data can do for an organisation, while accounting asks what an organisation may report as an asset, and the two answers differ.

Three things keep the booked value low.

• Accounting rules start from cost for intangible assets. IFRS (IAS 38), US GAAP, US public-sector rules (GASB 51) and Dutch GAAP (RJ 210) all do, and expected benefits do not raise the carrying amount.
• BIM data has no second-hand market. Without an active market, the revaluation model is not allowed and there is no fair value to refer to, which leaves cost as the only measurable anchor.
• The relevant cost is small. Only the directly attributable cost of the data counts. Once the design is known, rebuilding a model takes hours to weeks of work, and the full design fee does not count.

The benefits show up in the profit and loss account as lower maintenance cost, fewer failures and faster decisions, rather than as a line under intangible assets.

Why it matters

Owners push for balance-sheet recognition because what is on the balance sheet gets an owner, a budget and an annual check. Data that is expensed disappears from view in the year it is paid for, and after that nobody pays to keep it current.

The argument backfires when the expectation is too high. A BIM manager who tells the CFO the model is “worth millions” and then sees the controller book a few thousand euros, or nothing, loses credibility for the whole data programme. If you know in advance what accounting allows, you can make the case with numbers that survive an audit:

• The booked value is small and based on cost. It gives the data a place in the asset register, an amortisation schedule and an impairment test.
• The value in use can be large. It belongs in the business case and the maintenance budget, and has no place in the note on intangible assets.

What accounting rules allow, internationally

Every major framework measures intangible assets at cost first, and none lets an owner write BIM data up to what it is expected to save. The frameworks differ only in the details.

The common logic

To appear on a balance sheet as an intangible asset, BIM data has to pass three tests under IAS 38 and its equivalents:

1. The data must be identifiable: it can be separated from the building (sold, licensed, transferred), or it arises from a contract. An IFC file usually passes.
2. The owner must control it, meaning it has the rights to use the data and can stop others from using it. Contract terms on model ownership and licences decide this.
3. Future benefits must be probable and the cost reliably measurable. A maintained model usually meets the benefit test. The cost test is harder, because a model is rarely invoiced as a separate line.

A model that passes goes onto the balance sheet at cost. It is then amortised over its useful life and tested for impairment. The expected savings serve only as a ceiling in that impairment test and are never used as a starting value.

Framework by framework

The cost is usually already on the books

When an owner commissions a building or a bridge, the design and engineering fees are part of the cost of the physical asset. IAS 16 includes “any costs directly attributable to bringing the asset to the location and condition necessary” for its use, and that includes professional fees. US GAAP, GASB and Dutch GAAP work the same way.

So the model's cost is normally already capitalised inside the building and depreciated with it. Recognising the data separately carves a slice out of that cost and adds no new value. The total on the balance sheet stays the same, and the data slice gets its own useful life and impairment test.

The IASB review of intangibles

The IASB has a comprehensive review of IAS 38 on its work plan, looking at user needs and at definition and recognition. Its next milestone is a decision on project direction. Nothing in it so far proposes fair-value recognition of data, and any change would take years to reach annual reports.

No second-hand market, so cost is the only anchor

BIM data has no market price, and that rules out every route to a higher booked value. A revaluation needs an active market, with homogeneous items, willing buyers and sellers at any time, and public prices. An IFC model of one building on one site meets none of these conditions.

• Nobody buys someone else's model on its own. A model is bespoke to one asset, one site and one owner, and it changes hands only together with the asset, a concession or a maintenance contract.
• There are no observable prices. When a model is transferred, the price is negotiated privately and buried in a larger deal.
• A buyer pays for its own alternative. An incoming maintenance contractor pays at most what it would cost to get the facts another way, minus the effort of checking and converting your file. What the seller spent does not enter into it.

Under the rules, this has four consequences:

• Fair value less costs to sell (in Dutch: opbrengstwaarde) is effectively nil.
• The revaluation model is not available under IFRS, IPSAS or Dutch GAAP, and US GAAP does not allow it for any intangible.
• The recoverable amount, the ceiling in the impairment test, is therefore set by value in use alone.
• The only measurable starting point left is cost: what was paid for the data, or what it would cost to produce it again.

Buildings are different. Office space has rents, yields and transactions, so a property can be measured at fair value under IAS 40.

The eleven numbers that get called “the value of the data”

The Valuation tab in forensicBIM shows eleven numbers, plus origination cost off the ladder, because people mean very different things by “value”. The numbers differ by a factor of 1,000 or more. Only the carrying amount is a balance-sheet figure, and it is one of the smallest.

The numbers fall on two sides:

• The cost side asks what it would take to get the information back if it were lost tonight.
• The utility side asks what the data saves or earns for whoever holds it.

The two sides meet in deprival value, the lower of re-acquisition cost and value in use. An owner would never lose more than it costs to replace the data, and would never spend more to replace it than it is worth to keep.

Three things in this table explain the gap between what people feel and what the books show:

1. The large numbers sit on the utility side. Value at stake and value in use are what people mean when they say “data is gold”, and accounting uses value in use only as a cap.
2. Net realisable value is nil. With no market, the recoverable amount collapses onto value in use, and fair value cannot be used.
3. The carrying amount is the recognised cost, amortised. It stays at €0 unless the owner deliberately recognises the data, and even then it starts at the attributable cost and falls every year.

forensicBIM keeps origination cost off the ladder. The design fee pays for solving the engineering problem, and drawings, specifications and the IFC model all record the same decisions, so attributing the full fee to the model would count it several times.

Worked examples

In a real ten-apartment model, the value at stake runs into millions, while the most the model could carry on the balance sheet is about €2,800.

Example 1: ten apartments, one architectural model

The file is the architectural model of 10 Appartementen Schependomlaan. forensicBIM measures 33.4 hours to rebuild it with the answer known, €2,836 at a blended €85 an hour. After deductions for gaps in its data and its age, its depreciated replacement cost is €1,030. Three independent BIM specialists put the rebuild at about 38 hours, inside the model's likely range.

Everything a controller can book (the blue row) sits at the far left. What people have in mind when they say “data is gold” sits to the right: value in use up to €284k and value at stake up to €2.8M. That distance is the gap between what accounting measures and what the data does for its holder.

Example 2: four models compared

Figures are from the forensicBIM Valuation tab, valued 25 September 2026 at €85 an hour. Later model versions move the hours by a few per cent but leave the orders of magnitude unchanged.

Even the largest of these models, a building with more than 7,000 elements, has a measured cost below €7,000. Its value in use can be a hundred times that.

Example 3: what the controller actually books

A municipality takes over a €15M sports hall. The design team's fee was 10%, €1.5M, and it is already capitalised in the building's cost under IAS 16 (or GASB, or RJ). The facility manager wants the IFC model on the balance sheet “because it is worth a fortune”.

1. Decide what can be separated. The contracts do not price the model separately, and the design fee pays for a design recorded in drawings, specifications and the model alike. The defensible slice for the data is its reproduction cost, say €5,000, and it may never exceed what was actually paid.
2. Recognise and amortise. €5,000 moves from the building to an intangible asset. Over a 20-year useful life that is €250 a year of amortisation.
3. Test for impairment. Each year the carrying amount is compared with the recoverable amount, which without a market is value in use. While the model is maintained, value in use is far higher and nothing is written down. If the model stops being updated, value in use falls and the €5,000 may have to be written down.
4. Check thresholds. Many public bodies only capitalise intangibles above a set amount, so a €5,000 model can still end up expensed.

The balance sheet does not grow by €1.5M, nor by the €100k+ in maintenance savings the model may enable. It shows €5,000, falling by €250 a year.

Example 4: why a buyer will not pay “what it is worth”

A concessionaire hands a motorway bridge over to a new maintenance contractor. The outgoing party argues the models are worth €500k because they steer a €50M maintenance programme. The incoming contractor's maximum is its own alternative: scanning and surveying the bridge, perhaps €40k, minus what it will spend to check and convert the files. With no market to set a price, the deal lands near that alternative. The €50M programme is value at stake, and no buyer pays for that.

Where the real value sits, and how to argue for budget

BIM data pays off through lower costs in the profit and loss account and adds little to the asset side. Make the budget case on that basis and keep the two stories separate.

Practical points:

• Recognition is still worth doing. A small carrying amount gives the model an owner, a useful life (often 20 to 30 years for buildings, up to 50 for infrastructure) and an annual impairment test, which asks every year whether the data is still kept current.
• Maintenance is an operating cost. Keeping the model in step with the asset is normally expensed, so the budget line belongs in the maintenance plan, argued from value in use.
• Unmaintained data loses value quickly. Once the model and the built asset diverge, value in use drops and the carrying amount may have to be written down, while re-acquisition cost keeps rising as fabric is covered up.
• IFC protects the value. Data in a proprietary format can drop to zero when the software is no longer supported. IFC keeps the data readable for the full useful life that the amortisation period assumes.

Common misconceptions

Sources and further reading

• IAS 38 Intangible Assets, IFRS Foundation
• IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment, IFRS Foundation
• Intangible Assets project, IASB work plan
• IFRS vs US GAAP: Intangible assets, Deloitte DART
• Internally generated intangible assets under GASB 51, Georgia State Accounting Office
• BW2 art. 365, immateriële vaste activa, Dutch Civil Code
• Tijd voor introductie van digitale vaste activa, John Weerdenburg, Accountant.nl, January 2023
• forensicBIM Knowledge Base: The Eleven Numbers, and the Valuation tab of each model's details page