@weblinks This may help- from Paul Koppelman in August 2017:...

@weblinks

This may help- from Paul Koppelman in August 2017:

"FY17 was a year of significant investment for Aconex. It should be noted a significant proportion of this investment was for future sales.

Expenses, excluding D&A, in FY17 grew $25.7 million or 33%, to $104.5 million, up from $78.8 million in FY16. The addition of Conject and Connected Cost products, together with continued enhancements to the core product, contributed to the 60% increase in engineering and product costs expensed through the P&L which rose from $12.7 million in FY16, to $20.3 million in the financial year ended 30 June 2017."

So- to keep it brief- where R&D costs (such as the development of new product) are invested for future sales, it's natural to capitalise them and then expense them over a period ( I believe for ACX this is the following 3 years). This is in fact, fairly aggressive expensing relative to peers, given the probable life cycle of the product.

R&D costs in FY17 were higher than FY16 due to the launch of Connected Cost and the final integration phase of the Conject  platform and solutions.

Money spent on S&M is not about on-boarding, (which comes under product service, not sales)- it is about TAM penetration and new sales- plain and simple.

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This post is based on my own research and is not investment advice. When making investment decisions, always DYOR.