Annual Survey of Service Industries: Software Development and Computer Services (COMP)

Product of establishment, category

Product refers to goods and services (including knowledge capturing products) that result from a process of production. Goods are physical, produced objects for which a demand exists, over which ownership rights can be established and whose ownership can be transferred from one institutional unit to another by engaging in transactions on markets. Services are the result of a production activity that changes the conditions of the consuming units, or facilitates the exchange of products or financial assets.

Establishment refers to the level at which accounting data required to measure production is available (principal inputs, revenues, salaries and wages). The establishment, as a statistical unit, is defined as the most homogeneous unit of production for which the business maintains accounting records from which it is possible to assemble all the data elements required to compile the full structure of the gross value of production (total sales or shipments, and inventories), the cost of materials and services, and labour and capital used in production.