Betterment

An expense incurred to make a capital asset more productive, efficient or useful or to extend its useful life. Betterment is also known as an improvement and is debited to the Capital asset account. An example of Betterment is land improvements:

Land Improvements

Since land has an unlimited life and cannot be “consumed”, it is not subject to amortization. However, land improvements such as driveways, parking lots, lighting systems, parking space white lines, etc are subject to amortization. Since these costs increase the usefulness of the land, they are charged to a separate asset account known as Land Improvements. This is done so as to be able to allocate their costs in the periods they benefit.

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