Book Information Fields

Follow the guidelines provided below to complete the book information fields on the Main tab in Asset Detail.

The book information fields are extremely important since they determine your depreciation calculations. You must complete most of the fields according to rules imposed under GAAP or by the IRS. Although the application displays a warning message when it detects entries inconsistent with these rules, it does allow you to override the warning and make your own entries (it assumes you know what you're doing). However, if you are unsure about what you're doing, we recommend you heed the warning messages and re-think your entry. If you need a brush-up on depreciation rules and regulations, or if you need to simply look up a depreciation concept, refer to Depreciation and Fixed Asset Concepts.

The book information fields on the Main tab are organized in rows and columns. Each field contains depreciation data specific to the book heading up the column.

The system enters default information in the other open books based on the Tax book entries. For this reason, you might want to complete the Tax book first. Then, you may only need to make slight changes to each additional book. If you need to set default values in other books after the initial setting, you must use the Apply Book Defaults option on the Asset menu.

Following are the book information fields:

Items in this window

Item	Notes
Acquisition Date	The date you acquired the asset.
Activity Type	Whether the asset is related to governmental or business activities.
Open Books	Displays the number of open books in the company.
Property Type	Affects which depreciation methods will be available.
Placed-in-Service Date	The date the asset was placed in service (versus the date it was acquired).
Acquisition Value	The dollar amount to acquire the asset, including freight and installation charges.
Depreciation Method	There are 25 possible depreciation methods to choose from.
Estimated Life	The estimated life (Internal book) or recovery period (tax-related books) of the asset.
Salvage Value	The estimated dollar amount for which an asset can be sold at the end of its life.
Beginning Date	The date through which depreciation was calculated before the asset is entered into the application.
Beginning Year-to-Date	The amount of depreciation already taken for the fiscal year in which you are entering the asset in the application.
Beginning Accumulated	The total depreciation taken to date on the asset.
Prior Through Date	The system uses this book information field to display the prior date through which depreciation was calculated. The application automatically updates this field every time you calculate depreciation for the asset.
Current Through Date	The date through which the application last calculated depreciation.
Depreciation This Run	The amount of depreciation calculated for an asset since the last time the application calculated (that is, ran) depreciation. It can be for almost any length of time, but usually it will be for a month or a quarter of a year.
Current Year-to-Date	The current year-to-date depreciation.
Current Accumulated	The depreciation from placed-in-service date through the current through date.
Net Book Value	The current net book value.
Period Close Date	The date through which depreciation was last calculated for a period close.
Period Close Year-to-Date	The current depreciation expense through the most recent period close date.
Period Close Accumulated	The total depreciation taken from the placed-in-service date through the most recent period close date.