Documentation checklist

• The recognition date and the evidence that all criteria or the probable-to-complete threshold were met on it.
• A feasibility artefact: a prototype meeting target metrics on held-out data.
• Management authorisation and funding commitment, minuted with a date.
• The deployment or use plan showing ability to use or sell.
• The business case supporting probable future economic benefits.
• Contemporaneous time-allocation and compute-allocation records for the attributable cost.
• The carrying-amount build-up, excluding research and earlier expensed cost.
• The useful-life justification and amortisation policy memo.
• The impairment-indicator review for the period.
• For US GAAP, the significant-development-uncertainty assessment and its resolution date.

The single most common reason a capitalisation position fails is that the evidence was assembled after the period end to justify a decision already made. Documents dated with, and created at, the recognition point carry far more weight than a reconstruction. Build the file as the project proceeds, not at audit.