Note 5:         Intangibles

The Company’s intangible assets consist of customer relationship intangibles, trade names, favorable leases, licenses for the use of internet domain names, Universal Resource Locators, or URL’s, software, and marketing and technology related intangibles. All such assets are capitalized at their original cost and amortized over their estimated useful lives as follows: domain name and marketing – 3 to 20 years; software – 3 to 5 years, customer relationships – 7 to 15 years, favorable leases – over the life of the lease, outstanding lists – 20 years, trade names – 20 years. When certain events or changes in operating conditions occur, an impairment assessment is performed and lives of intangible assets with determined lives may be adjusted. Intangible amortization expense is $1,569 and $1,401 for the years ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

Impairment charges of $3,222 for the year ended September 30, 2019, were related to the write down of intangibles associated with the ApplianceSmart customer list and trade names due to the bankruptcy filing in December 2019, the write down of lease intangibles related to the ApplianceSmart retail locations closed during the period and the write down of software that is no longer in use.   There were no impairment charges for  the year ended September 30, 2018.

The following summarizes estimated future amortization expense related to intangible assets that have net balances: