Would love to get some recommendations on software for managing fixed assets. More particularly, what do you use to track the acquisitions, disposals and to calculate book depreciation and gains and losses?
How do you manage accounting for fixed assets?
Answers
Anon
Can you provide more info about your circumstances as that will help your colleagues here provide better answers? Are you an oil refinery, a small distributor, an 'office staff' only business?
Solutions vary from very small business solutions to large enterprise asset management packages that incorporate
2
Len - we're a midsize business that's been around for over a decade. We're an internet company that hosts everything with Amazon, so we don't have that many assets, but the assets that we do have are mostly computers and office assets (leasehold improvements, desks, etc). We have several hundred of them. The goal is to have accurate G/L records and support for our depreciation numbers and
We have tried to do this with NetSuite's fixed assets module, but it's not working as accurately and as simply as we want it to (that piece of software / module tends to be very buggy), and keeps being a major headache during f/s audits and tax compliance process.
Certainly there's something that works better and keeps records accurate.
Anon:
Are you sure you want to track those as FA?
Computers and peripherals have become such low cost, quickly obsolete items along with most office furniture, etc., that setting a $5,000 threshold for FA classification has turned them into simple expenses for us. This has reduced our need for FA accounting to something simple. Either large items such as vehicles or, a bulk or project purchase of a group of lower cost items - all with a useful life of more than one year of course - where we have a single line item for that procurement/project in the FA schedule with the details/document of the micro-procurements that made up the total set aside for reference if necessary (which it almost never is.)
As Thoreau said, simplify, simplify, simplify.
Anon, I have had great success with Sage Fixed Asset Software: I think it provides a good solution for mid-sized business as well as Enterprise, and the investment won't break the bank.
We currently have a couple of thousand assets and four depreciation models "federal tax", "state tax", "book", and "section 179". I have also used this application for a company that had over 48,000 active assets. I could upload bulk asset purchases each month using an
I hope that's helpful for you.
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Accounting