Like many companies, Nordstrom has developed and maintains a list of its customers and their characteristics, which it uses for mailing catalogs and other promotional purposes. Creating and maintaining a customer list takes time and resources, so a decision to have one entails certain investments and continuing expenditures. The expected benefits of a customer list are the future cash inflows associated with purchases made by listed customers after they receive their promotional materials. The larger and more detailed the customer list, and the more high-purchasing customers it includes, the greater are the expected future benefits
of the customer list. However, an internally developed customer list is not an accounting asset. Although the item meets the definition of an asset, it does not meet the third recognition criterion, because the firm cannot measure the future economic benefits of the list with suf ficient reliability. However, the firm would recognize an externally purchased customer list as an asset at an amount equal to the purchase price. Chapter 9 discusses the distinction between internally developed and acquired intangible assets in more detail and introduces certain differences between U.S. GAAP and IFRS.