Broadly speaking, it is an asset that is intangible/ non-physical, such as goodwill, corporate reputation, brand recognition and intellectual property. Soft assets may also include the human resources of an entity- that is its management and employees and their skills and technical know-how/ experience. Soft assets, as opposed to hard assets, generally have little or no market resale value, particularly on an individual basis.

In a very specific context, a soft asset may also denote an underwater asset; an asset that is subject to indebtedness (recourse liability) that exceed its fair market value (FMV). It is an asset whose market value is below its book value. Such assets, said to be lower quality assets, are usually shown on balance sheet at book value, while the owner expecting its to appreciate in value in the future (this is in order to avoid the recognition of embedded losses- i.e., the different between book value and market value).