Fixed assets: register, depreciation, disposals and counts

#What it is

Fixed assets keeps everything the shop owns and uses for years: the coffee machine, the shelves, the delivery van, the tills' computers, the shop's fit-out. For each one it holds what it cost, its depreciation month by month posted to Books, what it is worth in the books today, where it is and what happened to it.

Say a café in Jumeirah bought an espresso machine, a fridge and new seating. Each becomes an asset with its own tag; every month their depreciation goes to Books in one journal; when the old fridge is sold, the sale, the VAT and the gain or loss are booked in one step.

The menu gets a Fixed assets group with three pages: Fixed assets (the register), Depreciation and Asset count. Everything is worked out with fixed rules and exact figures: it is not an AI feature.

#Switching it on

Fixed assets is off until a manager switches it on in Settings → Fixed assets (or on its card in Settings → Modules). It posts every journal to Books, so Books must be on first: the switch refuses until it is, and Books cannot be switched off while Fixed assets is on. See Books.

The same page holds:

• Run each month by itself after the first run (on by default; see Depreciation);
• how many days before a warranty ends the owner is alerted (30), and after how many days an open count alerts (7);
• the categories and their accounts.

A shop on Online Retail would buy the add-on in Billing → Plan → "Add-on modules", but it still needs Books, which comes with Online Restaurant and Chain (see Plans).

#Rights

Team → the person → Rights has two rights:

• See fixed assets: the register, each asset and its schedule, the depreciation preview and the runs, the counts and the report.
• Manage fixed assets and run depreciation: register and edit assets, add a photo, run the month's depreciation, sell or dispose, move to another branch, revalue or impair, and open, scan and close counts.

The menu needs the first right, so a person who should manage assets gets both. Managers and the owner have both. The settings and the categories are a manager's. Someone limited to some branches sees and handles only those branches' assets. While the shop does not have the module, the two rights show locked with the name of the plan that has it.

#The register

Fixed assets lists the assets with their totals (cost, accumulated depreciation, net book value) and filters: a word or a scanned tag, the state, the category and the branch. Disposed assets are hidden unless you pick All, disposed too.

#A new asset

Press New asset and choose where its cost comes from, on one of three tabs:

1. Already in the books: the cost is in Books already, from the opening balances or an earlier journal, so nothing is posted. For an asset bought before you started the register, open Bought before: depreciation already booked and type the Depreciation booked and the month it is Booked through: the register carries on from the next month and spreads the rest over the life left.
2. Paid now: paid from cash or the bank, chosen in Paid from. The purchase is posted to Books (the asset account against the money account). No VAT is booked here: a purchase with VAT is recorded as a Books bill instead.
3. From a Books bill: a bill line booked to a fixed-asset account (Equipment, Furniture or Vehicles) is waiting here. Pick the Bill line: the cost (without VAT), the supplier and the date come from the bill, which already booked the purchase and its VAT, so nothing more is posted. Each bill line becomes one asset, once.

Then press Register the asset.

#The fields

• Tag: given by the register in one series, FA-000123, and printed as a barcode label.
• Photo: uploaded on the asset's page.
• Category, which brings the life, the method and the accounts; Branch; Place (kitchen, counter 2, back office…) and, when the Warehouses module is on, a Warehouse location (see Warehouses).
• Supplier (from the bill, or typed on the asset's page), Bought on and In use from (the in-service day, not before the purchase).
• Cost, Value left at the end (the salvage value, less than the cost), Useful life in years and months, and the Method; empty fields take the category's.
• Serial number, Warranty until and a note.
• State: In use, In store, Under repair or Disposed (the last one only through a sale or disposal).

#Changing an asset

The name, place, serial number, warranty, supplier's name, notes and state can always be changed. The category and the money fields (cost, value left, life, method, dates) can be changed only until depreciation has been booked for the asset; after that, use a revaluation or an impairment. The cost of an asset that came from a bill or was paid now stays as Books booked it. A different branch is a transfer.

Each asset's page shows its card (photo, money, dates, source and journals), its depreciation month by month and its History.

#Categories

Five categories are ready, with their life and method:

In Settings → Fixed assets → Categories a manager can change each one or add a New category: its life, method and declining rate (empty = twice the straight-line rate), and its four Books accounts: Asset account, Accumulated depreciation account, Depreciation expense account and Gain or loss on disposal account. An account left empty takes the chart's own. An asset keeps the account its cost sits in, so changing a category's account later never takes a disposal out of the wrong account.

#Tag labels

Each tag prints as a Code 128 barcode label with the asset's name and your shop's name, in the same sizes as the product labels: a roll, pharmacy labels, an A4 sheet or single labels.

• On Fixed assets, tick the assets and press Print the ticked labels.
• On an asset's page, press Print the tag label.

Stick the label on the asset: the counts and the search field read it.

#Depreciation

#The two methods

• Straight line: the cost less the value left at the end, spread evenly over the life; the months always add up exactly to that amount.
• Declining balance: each month takes the year's rate of what the asset is still worth in the books, never below the value left at the end; the life's last month brings it down to that value.

The first month counts the days in use: an asset in use from 16 January takes 16 of January's 31 days. The life then ends in the same calendar month a life later, which takes the days left.

#The month run

Open Fixed assets → Depreciation. You see a preview first: each asset's charge, and the journals it will post, one per branch with a line for each category (depreciation expense against accumulated depreciation). Check it, then press Run followed by the month's name.

• The first run can start from any month that has ended (the page offers the last one); the months before it are caught up in it.
• After that the months go in order, one at a time, and only once a month has ended.
• Assets in use, in store and under repair all depreciate; an asset registered later is caught up in the next run.
• Never posted twice: running a month again changes nothing.
• A run stopped half way (a closed period in Books, Books' approval, a restart) shows Stopped half way: press Finish the run. While a run is open, changes of an asset's money, sales, transfers and revaluations wait.

The page also lists the runs with their journal numbers.

#By itself

With Run each month by itself after the first run on (the default), once you have done the first run, each next month is posted by itself the day after it ends. Switched off, a manager runs each month, and the owner is alerted when one waits.

#Sale or disposal

On the asset's page, Sell or dispose on a day:

1. books the depreciation up to that day (a part month counts its days);
2. takes the asset out of the books: its cost and its accumulated depreciation;
3. books the gain or loss against what it fetched, on the category's gain or loss account.

How it is paid: Cash, Into the bank, On a customer invoice (a Books invoice to the customer, on their balance with your payment terms), or Nothing (scrapped or given away). Type the Proceeds before VAT. The sale carries VAT is ticked by default: 5 % VAT is added and goes to your VAT return figures in Books like any sale; untick it when the sale is out of scope.

The asset stays on the register as Disposed, with its history.

#Transfers between branches

With two branches or more (the Chain plan), Move to another branch on the asset's page moves it on a day: a journal moves its cost and accumulated depreciation from one branch's books to the other's, and the months not run yet are depreciated in the new branch. You can give it its new place at the same time.

#Revaluation and impairment

Revalue or impair changes what an asset is worth in the books:

• Up: revaluation, when it is worth more;
• Down: impairment (damaged, worth less).

Type the day and the amount and press Book the change. The other side goes to the category's gain or loss account unless you pick another in Against account (an income, expense or equity account). The change counts from the end of that day's month, and the depreciation after it spreads the new value over the life left. A month already depreciated past that day cannot take a change, and the value cannot go below zero.

#Asset counts

Fixed assets → Asset count → New count: pick the branch and Every place of the branch or one place (or Warehouses location), then Open the count. The assets that should be there make up the sheet.

Walk round and scan each tag with the phone's camera (Scan with the camera) or a barcode scanner, or type it (FA-000123 or just 123). Each scan answers:

• Found;
• Already counted;
• Belongs somewhere else: an asset of another place, or one already disposed;
• No asset has this code.

The sheet shows what is Found, Missing, From somewhere else and the Codes no asset has. Close the count with a note of what was found (the note is required), or Cancel the count. A count changes no asset: it is your list to act on, for example a transfer, a new state or a disposal. A count left open longer than the days you set (7) alerts the owner.

#Reports

• Asset register (on the Depreciation page): each asset with its cost (with revaluations), accumulated depreciation (with impairments) and net book value, with totals per category and per branch. Download it as Excel or CSV.
• Depreciation month by month (on each asset's page): every month's charge, the accumulated depreciation and the net book value, the booked months marked and the others planned.
• The journals themselves are in Books, with their numbers on the runs.

#Owner alerts and Ask your shop

While owner alerts and Fixed assets are on, the owner is told when:

• an asset's warranty ends within 30 days;
• a month's depreciation is waiting: never run, run by hand only, not done by the 3rd of the next month, or stopped half way;
• an asset count has been open more than 7 days.

The days can be changed in Settings → Fixed assets. Ask your shop answers "what is the book value of our assets?" and "how many assets do we have?": the assets by state, the cost, accumulated depreciation and net book value of your branches, the month waiting and the warranties ending soon.

#Coming from Books' asset page

Books used to keep its own asset register (Books → Fixed assets, /books/assets). It has moved here, so there is one register:

• The first time you open Fixed assets, every asset of Books' old page comes over once, with the same book values month by month: cost, value left, method and rate, the depreciation already posted and its own accounts. Nothing is posted again, and a disposed asset comes over as disposed.
• Its history shows Brought over from Books' own register.
• The old links open the new pages: /books/assets opens Fixed assets and its depreciation page opens Depreciation. The month-end checklist in Books counts the module's assets.
• The cost, life, dates, method and category of a brought-over asset stay locked as Books booked them; a revaluation or an impairment still changes its value.

#Plans and price

• Online Restaurant and Online Chain include Fixed assets, together with Books.
• Online Retail: an add-on at AED 29 a month before VAT, bought in Billing → Plan → "Add-on modules" (or Buy the add-on on its card in Settings → Modules), or ask us on WhatsApp. It needs Books, which comes with Online Restaurant and Chain and is not in Online Retail.
• Every 14-day trial includes it.
• It is in CreekPOS Online only, not in the buy-once desktop program.

The plans are on the pricing page.

#What it does not do

• No component depreciation (one asset split into parts with their own lives).
• No units-of-production method: only straight line and declining balance.
• No tax depreciation tables: the book depreciation is yours and your accountant's to set.
• No partial disposal: an asset is sold or disposed of as a whole.
• A transfer in the middle of a month does not split that month's depreciation: it goes to the new branch.
• It is not AI: fixed rules and exact figures.