Reflection Before discussing the differences in revenue expenditures and capital expenditures it is important to know what they are and how a company records and reports them. According to Weygandt, Kimmel & Kieso, (2010) during the useful life of a plant asset, a company may incur costs for ordinary repairs, additions, or improvements. Ordinary repairs are expenditures to maintain the operating efficiency and productive life of the unit. Companies record such repairs as debits to Repair (or Maintenance) Expense as they are incurred. Because they are immediately charged as an expense against revenues, these costs are often referred to as revenue expenditures. According to Weygandt, Kimmel & Kieso, (2010) additions and improvements are costs incurred to increase the operating efficiency, productive capacity, or useful life of a plant asset. They are usually material in amount in occur infrequently. Companies generally debit these amounts to the plant asset affected. They are often referred to as capital investments. Most major U.S. corporations disclose annual capital expenditures.
Similarities
There is only one similarity between revenue expenditures and capital expenditures. They are similar because they both have an effect on operating efficiency.

Differences
There are more differences between revenue expenditures and capital expenditures than similarities. Revenue expenditures are smaller and more frequent while capital expenditures are larger and infrequent.
Revenue expenditures “maintain” the operating efficiency such as painting, and repairing and capital expenditures “increase” the operating efficiency by adding or upgrading machinery or equipment.
Revenue expenditures are recorded as they occur, and capital expenditures are reported annually and debited to the plant assets that are affected.
It is important for companies to carefully decide between revenue expenditure and a capital expenditure and determine the impact of an items size of the company’s financial operations.

References

Weygandt, J. J., Kimmel, P. D., & Kieso, D. E. (2010). Financial accounting (7th ed.).