Operating Expenses: Our operating expenses include selling and marketing expenses, research and development expenses, general and administrative expenses and intangible asset amortization, exclusive of amounts included in cost of revenue.
Sales and Marketing: Sales and marketing expenses primarily consist of personnel and related expenses for our sales and marketing staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses, commissions and stock-based compensation. We capitalize commissions when they are earned by staff, which is when the customer contract is signed. We amortize capitalized commissions over the average historic customer contract life. In addition to staff costs, our cost of marketing includes product marketing and other brand-building and lead generation tactics such as webinars, trade shows, product seminars, content marketing, digital marketing, third-party content distribution and our annual client conference, Cvent CONNECT. In addition, we also allocate a portion of overhead, such as rent and depreciation to sales and marketing based on headcount.
Research and Development: Research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel and related expenses for our research and development staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation and the cost of third-party contractors. Research and development expenses, other than software development costs that qualify for capitalization, are expensed as incurred. In addition, we allocate a portion of overhead, such as rent and depreciation to research and development based on headcount.
General and Administrative: General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel and related expenses for administrative, internal information technology operations, finance, legal and human resource staff, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, as well as professional fees, insurance premiums and other corporate expenses. In addition, we allocate a portion of overhead, such as rent and depreciation to general and administrative based on headcount.
Intangible Asset Amortization, Exclusive of Amounts Included in Cost of Revenue: Intangible asset amortization, exclusive of amounts included in cost of revenue, consists entirely of amortization expenses related to acquired customer relationship and trademark intangible assets. This line item excludes intangible asset amortization related to cost of revenue, which is defined as acquired developed technology and capitalized software intangible asset amortization.
Other: Our other income/expense items include interest expense, amortization of deferred financing costs and debt discount, gain/loss on divestitures, net and other income/expense, net.
Interest Expense: Interest expense relates primarily to interest payments on our outstanding borrowings under the $740.0 million credit facility with a syndicate of lenders, comprised of an initial $700.0 million term loan facility (which term loan facility was increased by way of a $53.0 million incremental facility on October 16, 2018) and a $40.0 million incremental facility on October 26, 2018 (such term loan facility as increased by the incremental facilities, the “Term Loan Facility”) and a $40.0 million revolving loan facility (the “Revolving Credit Facility”, and together with the Term Loan Facility, the “Credit Facilities”) we entered into pursuant to the Credit Agreement dated November 30, 2017 (the “Credit Agreement”) by and between Cvent, Inc. as borrower, Papay Holdco, LLC, as Holdings, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, as administrative agent, the guarantors from time to time party thereto, and the lenders and other parties from time to time party thereto, as amended, restated, amended and restated, supplemented or otherwise modified from time to time.
Amortization of Deferred Financing Costs and Debt Discount: Amortization of deferred financing costs and debt discount consists of the amortization of up-front fees paid at the inception of our Credit Facilities.
Gain/(Loss) on Divestitures, net: Gain/(loss) on divestitures, net consists entirely of the loss incurred on the divestiture of a subsidiary of Cvent in 2020.
Other Income/(Expense), net: Other income/(expense), net consists primarily of interest income, foreign currency gains or losses, and import tax credits.