To paraphrase, "this is so bad, it is not even wrong". Firstly, both cost of sales (COGS) and sales, general and administrative (SG&A, where marketing belongs)

To paraphrase, "this is so bad, it is not even wrong". Firstly, both cost of sales (COGS) and sales, general and administrative (SG&A, where marketing belongs) are profit and loss statement (P&L) items. They really have nothing in common with balance sheet. Secondly, it is in COGS, because support is directly attributable to specific product and directly impacts given product's gross margin. You can specifically tell, which product is well or badly designed, due to support it requires. In specific cases (one-off products - projects), support is financed from reserves created for specific projects. These reserves impact the margin of the project (and the project manager's bonus is usually based on the project margin). Thirdly, it is not "management" who decides, what goes where. It is CFO and his minions, who base it on "accounting standars" (US GAAP or IAS, depending where you are), so the revenues and cost structure is comparable among companies. Benchmarking is not used only in tech field. Fourthly, where comes this belief, that management does not slash SG&A costs, but does COGS? They do both, but COGS, if it leads to acceptable gross margin is left alone; SG&A is being cut at any possible chance.