Report phase

A defensible ROI on capitalised AI

Report, live question

A credible ROI on a capitalised AI asset sets the benefits it generates against its full cost of ownership, including the amortisation drag that the capitalise decision created. The figures must tie back to the token ledger and the amortisation schedule, so the same carrying amount the note discloses drives the return the board sees IAS 38 §118.

Amortisation drag belongs in the return

Capitalising the build did not make it free; it moved the cost from a single period into an amortisation charge spread across the useful life. A ROI view that ignores that charge overstates the return. The defensible calculation nets the asset's benefits, incremental revenue or operating cost saved, against the period amortisation charge and the run-phase inference cost, so the reader sees the true economics.

Tie every figure to source

The carrying amount and amortisation charge come from the schedule that feeds the disclosure note, not a separate model.
Run-phase cost comes from the token ledger, the same source as the capitalised build spend.
Claimed benefits are supported by measured outcomes, not aspirational targets.

Claims an audit committee will reject

A committee that has seen the disclosure note will reject a ROI that uses a different carrying amount, that omits the amortisation charge, or that counts benefits twice, once as cost saved and again as revenue. It will also reject speculative future benefits presented as realised. The safest ROI is the modest one that reconciles line by line to figures already in the accounts.

Keeping it illustrative where it is a template

A ROI framework shown for teaching, like the ladders on this site, carries an illustrative-example label so the numbers are never mistaken for a real result. In a live board pack the figures are the entity's own, drawn from the schedule and the ledger, and the label is removed. The structure, benefits net of amortisation drag and run cost, is the same in both IAS 38 §97.