Fixed Asset Entry

Your organization can acquire fixed assets in a variety of ways, including construction, purchasing, and contribution to the authorized capital from the founders.

You create a record for each of the organization's fixed assets that you want to manage by using MYOB Advanced.

If you have made a mistake when creating the record for an asset, you may delete or annul the asset, and then record the asset correctly.

Entering a Fixed Asset

To enter assets one at a time, you use the Fixed Assets (FA303000) form, which is the primary data entry form for the Fixed Assets module, and enter all pertinent information. For a new asset, you specify at least the following parameters:

  • The asset class. Once you select a class, the system fills in common fixed asset settings, such as property type, asset type, useful life, depreciation book or books, and appropriate GL accounts that can be used for an asset to be created. You can change most of the default settings, if required.
  • The acquisition information, such as the receipt date, the original acquisition cost, and the quantity of units in the asset.
  • The start date of the depreciation (for a depreciable asset) or the placed-in-service date (for a non-depreciable asset).
  • The department to which the asset belongs.
Note: You can change the acquisition cost of the asset only before you release the purchasing transaction, so that the data on the Balance tab of the Fixed Assets form will be updated correctly. After the purchasing transaction is released, the data will be posted to the books and cannot be modified even though the Orig. Acquisition Cost box on the General tab of the form is available for editing.

Entering a fixed asset into the system creates a Purchasing + transaction. The cost of the asset is recorded as an unreconciled amount, which you can view on the Reconciliation tab on the Fixed Assets form. You can later reconcile the acquisition cost of the asset with the financial documents declaring the asset acquisition. For details, see Revaluation of an Asset.

For more information about transaction types, see Types of Fixed Asset Transactions.

Entering a Non-Depreciable Fixed Asset

Non-depreciable assets are the assets that cannot be depreciated—that is, those assets that do not lose their value over their useful time. Land and most intangible assets are considered non-depreciable assets because they have an unlimited useful life.

When you create a non-depreciable fixed asset by using the Fixed Assets (FA303000) form or a fixed asset class (for grouping non-depreciable assets) by using the Fixed Asset Classes (FA201000) form, you need to clear the Depreciable check box so that users will not be required to fill in the Useful Life, Years box.

After saving an asset and releasing an appropriate transaction, you can perform any common operation with a non-depreciable asset, such as disposing, splitting, transferring, and creating additions and deductions. However, the depreciation will not be calculated for such an asset.

Entering a Fixed Asset Under Construction

Fixed assets under construction are those that do not require depreciation until the construction is complete and do not need to have a Placed-in-Service Date specified on the General tab (Asset Summary section) of the Fixed Assets (FA303000) form. The cost of assets under construction is recorded in a dedicated asset account. While an asset is under construction, you can process cost additions and deductions, as well as perform other fixed asset operations, except for depreciation.

To create an asset under construction, you should do the following:

  1. Create a fixed asset class with the Under Construction check box selected on the Fixed Asset Classes (FA201000) form. For more details, see To Create an Asset Class.
  2. On the Fixed Assets form, create a fixed asset assigned to the fixed asset class you created in Step 1. For more details, see To Enter a Fixed Asset Under Construction.

    Optionally, you can specify the Placed-in-Service Date for this asset. The Placed-in-Service Date box is available for editing and can be cleared for a fixed asset associated with an under-construction asset class. If the Placed-in-Service Date box is empty, the asset can be transferred only to another under-construction asset class.

When the construction of a fixed asset has been completed, you should do the following:

  1. Specify the Placed-in-Service Date for the fixed asset on the Fixed Assets form, if it has not been specified.
  2. On the Transfer Assets (FA507000) form, transfer the asset to a fixed asset class that is not used for under-construction assets, as described in To Transfer an Individual Asset. This process will post the following entry, transferring the asset cost to the Fixed Assets account.
    GL Account Debit Credit
    Fixed Assets Asset cost 00.00
    Fixed Assets under Construction 00.00 Asset cost
  3. Start depreciating the fixed asset on the Calculate Depreciation (FA502000) form by selecting Depreciate in the Action box of the Summary area. For more details, see To Depreciate an Asset.

Maintaining Fixed Assets with Multiple Base Currencies Enabled in the System

The fixed assets functional area does not support documents in a foreign currency; documents are processed only in the base currency. If the Multiple Base Currencies feature enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, on all fixed asset-related forms that produce GL transactions, the system verifies that the branches specified in a transaction have the same base currency. You can review the currency of amounts and total amounts in all fixed asset transactions on multiple data entry forms and reports.

On the Fixed Assets (FA303000) form, if you change the branch of the asset in the Branch box on the General tab and no Purchasing+ transaction has been released for the asset, the system will insert the base currency of the selected branch in the Currency box.

You cannot change the asset's branch to a branch in a different currency in the following cases:

  • If the asset has produced at least one GL transaction with the Purchasing+ transaction type
  • If the asset was created by clicking Split on the More menu of the Fixed Assets form, even if no GL transaction was generated
  • If the asset was created on the Convert Purchases to Assets (FA504500) form, even if no GL transaction has been generated yet
  • If a reconciliation transaction has been created for the asset
  • If the asset was migrated

Converting Items into Fixed Assets

All the transactions that are associated with converting acquired items into fixed assets are aggregated on one account and subaccount by default. You specify the FA Accrual account and subaccount on the Fixed Assets Preferences (FA101000) form as the default account and subaccount for such transactions.

To convert items to assets, you use the Convert Purchases to Assets (FA504500) form. You select the appropriate Fixed Asset Accrual account in the Account box in the summary area, and after that, transactions associated with the selected account appear in the upper table of the current form. You can convert one item or multiple items at once, each into one asset or multiple assets. In the lower table, you can add a line for each particular asset manually, or add all required asset lines (that correspond to the quantity of items specified in a transaction in the upper table) at once by selecting an asset class for a transaction in the upper table.

You can set up the conversion parameters on three different levels: in the summary area, in the lines of the upper table, and for the assets in the lower table. The settings in the summary area are used as the defaults for the bills in the upper table; the settings in the line of the upper table are used as the defaults for the assets in the lower table. You can override any default settings by changing them in the lower table for each new asset individually.

If you use the FA accrual account and subaccount to aggregate not only the items for conversion but also other items, you should hide the items that you don't want to convert. In this case, select the Reconciled check box for those items in the upper table. The items will be hidden when you process the conversion of the new assets.

If the Multiple Base Currencies feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the following rules are applied when a user is converting a purchase to an asset on the Convert Purchases to Assets form:

  • It is not possible to create an asset in a branch based on a purchasing transaction posted for another branch that has a different base currency.
  • If a user is adding a new asset, the upper table shows only the GL transactions in the same base currency as the base currency of the selected branch.
  • If a user is making an addition to a fixed asset, the lookup table in the Asset ID column in the lower table shows only the assets whose currency is the same as the base currency of the selected branch.

Converting a purchase into a fixed asset creates Purchasing + and Reconciliation + transactions. For more information about transaction types, see Types of Fixed Asset Transactions.

Importing Fixed Assets

You can import assets with accumulated depreciation into MYOB Advanced without updating the General Ledger. You can create a record for each asset manually or import the existing records from other applications.

To add an existing asset manually, you switch the Fixed Assets module to the initialization mode and add a new record on the Fixed Assets (FA303000) form. For the asset, you specify the asset parameters, such as the date when the asset was acquired, the original cost, the start of the depreciation, and the asset class. Also, you must specify the accumulated depreciation amount and the last depreciation period. Then you calculate the depreciation and check the results. If the resulting depreciation amounts match the depreciation in the legacy application, you can switch off the initialization mode. For details, see To Import Fixed Assets.

Specifying the Quantity of Items Included in the Asset

A fixed asset may contain more than one unit. You can specify the quantity of units in the asset when you create the asset.

Later, you can split the asset (if, for example, you want to dispose of part of the asset). For more information, see Fixed Asset Splits.

Deleting an Asset

You can delete a fixed asset from the system if it does not have any transactions associated with it. If transactions were made but were not released, you can first delete the transactions and then delete the fixed asset.

When you delete an asset, the asset record is completely removed from the system and the system can later reuse the asset ID. For details, see To Delete a Fixed Asset.