Investment in Human Capital: Problems of Accounting

One of the priorities of the modern enterprise is the support and continuous improvement of the professional level of its employees, that is, the formation of such skills that allow them to quickly adapt to new technologies and realities of the economy development. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the need and to develop the organizational, methodical and methodological approaches to accounting of the investments in the enterprise's human capital. The possible directions of investment in the enterprise's human capital were determined. Theoretical approaches to the definition of the economic essence of investment in human capital in the current conditions of economic development were considered. The state of accounting for investments in the enterprise's human capital in Ukraine was analyzed. The expediency of accounting for costs arising in the process of formation, use and reproduction of the enterprise's human capital was proved. Such accounting should be based on the integration of cost and investment approaches. With a view to implementing this methodological approach, it was proposed to introduce a new classification criterion for the division of financial investments in enterprise employees - impact on the economic result. According to this classification criterion, all costs incurred by the enterprise for employees should be divided into investment costs associated with an increase of the expected economic benefits from the use of personnel, and current costs that do not lead to an increase of the expected economic benefits from the use of personnel. In order to change the basis of the existing practice of accounting for personnel costs that meets the needs of value-oriented management, it was proposed to capitalize the costs for the professional development of personnel and include them to the intangible assets in the form of an enterprise's right to use human capital.