Guide to fixed asset accounting

Guide to fixed asset accounting

Last update: Tuesday, Mar 08, 2022

The Basics

With fixed assets accounting, you can automate monthly depreciation entries, dispose assets and generate reports for your fixed assets like equipment, vehicles, machinery, etc,

For example, you purchased a piece of equipment at a gross value of $24,000 and you plan to amortize it over 24 months. AccelGrid can automatically create a depreciation entry reducing the value of the equipment by $1,000 and passing $1,000 as an expense. After 2 years, the value of this equipment in your balance sheet's assets account would be $0 (salvage value).

Depending on the type of fixed asset you may choose to post a yearly/monthly depreciation with a linear/degressive depreciation method.

Setting up Asset Types

An Asset type is used to define depreciation and asset accounts, depreciation method, periodicity, etc for assets. Therefore, it is recommended to create asset types for every group of assets. Some examples of Asset Types include Vehicles: 5 Years, Equipment : 3 Years, Hardware: 3 Years.

To set up an asset type, go to Configuration -> Management -> Asset Types

Creating Assets

Once you have created the Asset Types, you can then register your Assets. There are two ways to create an Asset:

  • Manually

  • Automatically from a vendor bill

Creating assets manually (without a vendor bill)

To create an asset manually, go to the Accounting -> Accounting -> Assets and click on the Create button. Once your asset is created, you can check the depreciation lines that will be generated and their due dates by clicking on the Compute Depreciation button. Once you have verified the depreciation entries, click on the Confirm button. This will change the status of the Asset from Draft to Running.

Creating assets automatically from a supplier bill

Assets can be automatically created from supplier bills. To do this, simply specify an asset category on your bill line. When you validate the bill, an asset will be automatically created, using the information from the vendor bill.

If you wish to auto-confirm your assets, then enable the Auto-Confirm Assets setting in the asset category.

You can also configure the asset category at the product level in the Accounting tab of the Product form.

Generating depreciation entries

Depreciation Journal entries are automatically created as they are due for confirmed assets. A depreciation line with a yellow indicator means that the journal entry has been created for this line. However, can also force the posting of a journal entry for a depreciation line before the due date by clicking on the red indicator.

How to modify an existing asset?

To modify the depreciation of an asset simply click on the Modify Depreciation button. Once you modify the depreciation, the depreciation lines will be recomputed.

How to record the sale or disposal of an asset?

To sell or dispose of an asset, click on the button Sell or Dispose. This action will post the full costs of the asset but it will not record the actual sales transaction.

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