Property, Building and Equipment, net

6 Months Ended

Jan. 31, 2015

Property, Building and Equipment, net [Abstract]

Property, Building and Equipment, net

6. Property, Building and Equipment, net

In November 2013, management decided to abandon the Company’s existing operating and financial software system and migrate to new system software.  The Company acquired and developed new software during fiscal year 2014, and began utilizing the new software effective August 1, 2014 for its U.S. operations.  Although the core software modules were operating effectively as of August 1, 2014, certain operational and reporting capabilities of the new system continued to be developed during the six months ended January 31, 2015.  The process to develop new operating and financial software systems for the Company’s significant foreign subsidiaries is expected to be completed during the quarter ended April 30, 2015.  The Company recorded software development costs of $0.3 million and $0.5 million in property, plant and equipment during the six months ended January 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively.

The Company continued to utilize the previous software system through July 31, 2014, at which time the previous system was abandoned.  As a result, amortization of software development costs capitalized for the previous system was accelerated so that the system was completely amortized by July 31, 2014.  Total software amortization expense was less than $0.1 million and $0.7 million for the quarters ended January 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively, and $0.1 million and $1.3 million for the six months ended January 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively.