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You don’t need a magic 8 ball to capitalize software development costs

Both a magic 8 ball and Swarmia will give you answers to your software capitalization questions. Only one of them will get the CFO off your back.
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How much of that was capitalizable?

Software capitalization is one of those questions that sounds straightforward until someone actually asks it. Which engineering work qualifies as a capital expense? How much time did your teams spend on new features versus maintenance? Can you break that down by team, by individual, by quarter, by project?

Most engineering leaders piece together an answer from GitHub exports, Jira reports, timesheets, and a questionable amount of guesswork — then hope the CFO doesn’t dig too deep.

Some have explored … other methods.

One engineering leader even explored using a magic 8 ball. It committed to answers quickly and never refused a question. His CFO was less impressed.

There’s a better way to understand what’s happening in your engineering organization — and it comes with automated, audit-ready reporting.

A detailed comparison

Here’s all you need to know when you’re deciding between shaking a magic 8 ball and investing in Swarmia, the engineering intelligence platform you can trust.

Change target:
A magic 8 ball
A magic 8 ball
Swarmia
Accuracy
Probabilistic. Results vary based on shaking technique.
Based on actual data from GitHub, GitLab, Jira, Linear, and your HR system.
Work categorization
Binary. Yes, no, ask again later.
Automatically categorizes work by type — new features, improvements, and maintenance — across every team.
Audit readiness
“Outlook not so good” has not been accepted as a GAAP-compliant accounting method.
Audit-ready reports your finance team can actually use.
Time to produce a report
Under three seconds.
Instant, automated, runs continuously in the background.
Breakdown by team
Not supported. Unless you count mental breakdowns.
Yes — by team, individual, project, initiative, or time period.
Confidence in the boardroom
It depends.
High.
Finance team reaction
Mixed.
Overwhelmingly positive.
Setup required
Shake, read, and hope.
Connect your code hosting platform, issue tracker, and HR system in just a few minutes.
Engine
TrueLayer
Matillion
AdCellerant

250+

engineers at Engine get the data they need, without having to change the way they work

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“What I like about Swarmia is that all you have to do is connect it to your existing tools and then you get a whole bunch of information — without having to change your process or go through hours of consulting to make sure that the labels on the tickets are just right.”

Egan Royal, SVP Engineering at Engine

Egan Royal

SVP Engineering
Engine

Egan Royal, SVP Engineering at Engine

“What I like about Swarmia is that all you have to do is connect it to your existing tools and then you get a whole bunch of information — without having to change your process or go through hours of consulting to make sure that the labels on the tickets are just right.”

Egan Royal

SVP Engineering
Engine

Swarmia is a better way to capitalize software development costs

Swarmia automates software capitalization reporting by pulling data directly from the tools your engineering teams already use. It categorizes work, tracks time spent across teams and initiatives, and automatically produces reports you can hand to finance and auditors.
Explore software capitalization with Swarmia→

Don’t be like John

He means well, but his methods range from slightly eccentric to seriously unhinged.
The signal hound→
A psychic dog might tell you whether your AI investment is paying off. But it probably won't.
The séance→
You could summon the spirits to let you know which initiatives are stuck. But maybe don’t?
Rock, paper, hotfix→
Because you really don’t need a made-up game to decide whose team will take on the next big project.

There’s a better way to run your engineering organization

It’s called Swarmia, and we’d love to show you around.

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