Fixed Assets Overview

What Are Fixed Assets?

Fixed assets are items a company owns and uses in its operation. Fixed assets do not include assets used for resale purposes, such as inventory, and those held on a temporary or short-term basis. Examples of fixed assets include:

• Equipment
• Furniture and fixtures
• Buildings
• Leasehold improvements

What Is Depreciation?

You do not usually expense fixed assets during the year you acquire them. Rather, you record their value as an asset on the balance sheet and depreciate the value over their useful life.

Fixed assets can accommodate many types of depreciation methods. SyteLine provides seven predefined depreciation methods and allows you to add additional, custom depreciation methods. You can also maintain up to four separate depreciation schedules for each fixed asset. This feature allows you to maintain both your book and tax records on one system.

Several factors influence the method selected for calculating fixed asset depreciation:

• The expected useful life of the asset
• The expected salvage value at the end of its useful life
• Its original cost

After the system calculates depreciation for a particular accounting period, it records the depreciation onto the General Ledger as a debit to the depreciation expense and as a credit to the accumulated depreciation.

Fixed Assets and the General Ledger

Fixed Assets operate with the General Ledger in the following ways:

• During Fixed Assets Disposal, the system credits the asset account and debits the Accumulated Depreciation account. (You enter any remaining distributions manually.)
• During Fixed Assets Transfer, when transferring from one Class Code to another, the system transfers the asset from the old asset account (and its accumulated depreciation account) to the new asset account and its accumulated depreciation account.
• During depreciation posting (for the BOOK schedule only), the system posts to the Depreciation Expense account and to the Accumulated Depreciation account.
• When you enter a Fixed Assets purchase, you must enter an acquisition transaction into the General Ledger to debit the Asset account and credit the Cash account.
• Fixed Asset records are created when the Fixed Asset Number is assigned on the Purchase Order Line.
• Any line received with a Fixed Asset number updates the Fixed Asset Acquired date.

Related Topics

Fixed Assets Steps