How To Record an Improvement to an Asset

Issue

How to record an Asset that has been added to or upgraded for depreciation purposes?

Resolutions

Resolution 1 - Create a new asset for the addition/upgrade, using the same Asset ID with a different Suffix

For example, I have improved an asset with the AssetID-Suffix combination of TRUCK-1. I could then create a second asset for the addition/upgrade using the same Asset ID, but a new Suffix, TRUCK-2.

These two AssetID-Suffix combinations will behave as separate, individual assets. That is, depreciating TRUCK-1 will have no effect on TRUCK-2. TRUCK-2 would need to be depreciated separately. This would be one way of making it easier to track the improvement for reporting purposes.

In addition, for reporting purposes, you may select a Master Asset ID in the Asset General Information window, indicating that asset TRUCK-1 is the "Master Asset" for the second asset, which is another way to assist you in grouping assets on reports.

Resolution 2 - Manually change the Cost Basis for the asset

A second option is to manually increase the Cost Basis of the improved asset under Cards | Fixed Assets | Book. Because the Cost Basis field is a depreciation-sensitive field, when you save the changes to this Asset ID/Book combination you will be prompted to either Reset Life, Reset Year, or Recalculate. If you do not want to affect the depreciation you have run previously for this asset, and only want Fixed Assets to take the new Cost Basis into consideration from this point forward in the asset's life, then you will want to choose Recalculate.

Note - Should you ever need to Reset Life on this asset, Fixed Assets will be unable to determine when you manually altered the Cost Basis amount or what the original Cost Basis was, and it will reset depreciation for the entire life of the asset using the current Cost Basis amount. Reset Year will behave similarly if you manually altered the Cost Basis during the current year.


This article was TechKnowledge Document ID: 30289