What makes a spending item a capital expenditure?

1. Capital expenditures are investments in physical assets such as land, buildings, machinery, equipment and information systems. 2. What marks them out is that their benefits extend beyond one year, while operating expenses produce benefits within a year. 3. A printing press with a usable life of seven years is a capital expenditure and appears as a fixed asset, while the paper and ink are expenses. 4. Mergers and acquisitions also count as capital expenditures. _Source: OpenStax Introduction to Business (CC BY 4.0), Ch 16 "Understanding Financial Management and Securities Markets", section 16.2 How Organizations Use Funds_