Asset Transaction Types

In the day-to-day administration, assets are the central concept and foundation for all transactions.

When you purchase an asset on a long-term basis, you must register it in the Fixed Assets module. This is done in the Assets window, in which you can register a wide variety of information about the asset. A large part of the information is of non-financial character. The purpose of having the information is to secure proper documentation of the asset. The remainder of the information pertains to the life (depreciation period) of the asset, depreciation method, as well as residual value, and the non-depreciable part of the purchase price. The residual value is the amount to which you wish to depreciate the purchase price. The residual value can also be perceived as the price you expect to be able to sell the asset for, after the depreciation period is over.

The purchase price (cost) is registered by creating a transaction of the type Purchase. The purchase transaction is entered in the window Asset Adjustment in the same way as other manual transactions. This happens either if you enter a cost price when creating the asset, or it can happen subsequently, by making an asset adjustment after creating the asset.

Once the transaction is made, the only change that typically takes place for an asset is depreciation. Normally, the depreciation will be generated automatically, and this takes place in the window Depreciation Adjustment. Here you enter the date you wish to start depreciating. Maconomy then creates a depreciation adjustment suggestion, which you can inspect and edit manually in the Asset Adjustment window. After you have finished editing the asset adjustment, you approve it. This updates the information attached to the asset. At the same time, Maconomy creates a posting journal of the type “Asset Journal,” which you must post in the G/L module.

Once in a while you may have to make extraordinary write-ups, write-downs, depreciation, and corrections to previous years’ depreciation. This is done in the Asset Adjustment window, in which you can create entries manually. An improvement in an asset will typically give occasion to a manual entry similar to a new purchase.

There are four types of transactions which cannot be selected manually in the Asset Adjustment window. These are the types Sale, Internal Sale, Relocation, and Transfer. These types of transaction are created in the window “Asset Disposal.”