Fixed Assets

1. ADDING AN ASSET — STEP BY STEP

1. Accounting → Fixed Assets → Add Asset.
2. Enter the asset's cost, salvage value (what it'll be worth at the end of its useful life), useful life, and category.
3. Choose a depreciation method (or use your category's default):

• Straight-Line — the simplest option: the same fixed amount depreciates every period, evenly, across the asset's useful life. Good for assets that lose value steadily — office furniture, buildings.
• Declining Balance — an accelerated method: a fixed percentage of the asset's remaining value depreciates each period, so you write off more in the early years and less later — good for equipment or vehicles that lose most of their value early. The system automatically switches to straight-line partway through once that would produce a bigger deduction, the standard convention accountants expect — applied for you automatically.
• Sum-of-Years-Digits — another accelerated method: like Declining Balance, it front-loads more depreciation into the early years, but using a different formula (a fraction based on the asset's remaining useful life each period, rather than a fixed percentage of what's left). Some accounting policies specify this method by name, so it's available as a direct choice alongside Declining Balance rather than an approximation of it.
• MACRS — the official US tax depreciation method. The system looks up your asset's IRS property class and applies the correct official year-by-year percentage automatically — useful when you want your book depreciation to match what you'll report on your tax return.
• Units of Production — for assets that wear out based on usage, not time (a machine that wears per unit made, a vehicle that wears per mile driven). You record actual usage each period, and depreciation is calculated based on real use rather than the calendar.

1. Save. A full period-by-period schedule is generated (except Units of Production, which computes one period at a time as usage is recorded, since future usage can't be predicted in advance).

2. RUNNING & POSTING DEPRECIATION

Depreciation runs forward automatically on schedule. Each computed run can be reviewed and approved before it posts to your General Ledger — so nothing hits your books without a human checking it first if you want that control, while the actual math is never left to manual calculation.

Every schedule, regardless of method, guarantees two things: the first period is correctly prorated based on exactly when in the month the asset was placed in service, and the final period is always a "true-up" that closes the schedule out to exactly (cost − salvage value) with no rounding drift — you'll never end up with an asset that's a few cents short of, or over, fully depreciated.

3. DISPOSING OF AN ASSET

When an asset reaches end of life or is sold/scrapped, it's recorded as disposed in the register, closing out its depreciation schedule and posting the appropriate final entry to the books.

4. HOW IT CONNECTS TO THE REST OF THE SYSTEM

• Chart of Accounts / General Ledger — every depreciation period posts through the same guaranteed-balanced posting engine used across the whole product.
• Financial Statements — depreciation expense flows straight into your P&L, and asset book values into your Balance Sheet, automatically.

5. WHY IT SCALES FROM SMB TO ENTERPRISE

Quick Reference

  Fixed Assets register .................... Accounting > Fixed Assets
  Add a new asset .......................... Fixed Assets > Add Asset
  Approve a depreciation run ............... Fixed Assets > Depreciation
                                             Schedule > Approve