What this module is for
A fixed asset register is one of those records that is easy to start and hard to keep honest. Machines get bought through the purchase module and never capitalised; depreciation gets computed once a year in a spreadsheet the night before the audit; the net block in the books stops agreeing with the schedule attached to the return.
This module closes that gap by making the register the source of the accounting rather than a report produced afterwards. Each asset carries its own cost, method, rate and ledger heads. Depreciation is posted as a real journal voucher every month, so the net block on your balance sheet is always the sum of the register — not an estimate reconciled later.
Who typically uses it: accounts capitalise purchases and run the monthly depreciation; management watches the gross block and net block tiles; the auditor works from the Asset Register export.
Where to find it
Everything sits under Assets & Loans in the top navigation:
| Menu item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Fixed Assets | The asset register list. Click any row for the asset's detail and depreciation history. |
| Asset Purchase | Create a new asset purchase voucher. |
| Asset Purchases | List of purchase vouchers raised, with their approval status. |
| Asset Register | The audit-ready report, in as-of and movement modes, with Excel export. |
| Run Depreciation | Post the monthly depreciation journal. |
Accounting Home also carries an Asset Management section with shortcuts to Fixed Assets and Run Depreciation.
Two ways an asset gets into the register
Choosing correctly between these is the single most important decision in this module.
Add Fixed Asset — for what you already own
Use this at go-live to bring your existing plant on-book, or for an asset acquired without a purchase invoice to record. You supply the cost and the depreciation basis directly. It capitalises the asset against Opening Balance Equity, which is the correct treatment for an opening position — no vendor, no GST, no payment.
Unlike a draft document, registering an asset is an accounting event: it debits your chosen asset head and credits Opening Balance Equity, on the purchase date. The period for that date must be open.
Asset Purchase Voucher — for what you buy from now on
Use this for every acquisition once you are live. It is a full purchase document: vendor, invoice number and date, asset cost, freight and installation charges, GST with an ITC choice, and whether you paid now or bought on credit. It then creates the asset master automatically from the details you enter, so you never register the same machine twice.
Registering an asset directly
Go to Assets & Loans → Fixed Assets and open the add screen. The fields:
| Field | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Asset name | Yes | Descriptive name, for example CNC Mill — Bay 4. Make it specific enough to identify on a shop floor. |
| Category | Yes | Building, Machinery, Furniture, Vehicle, Electronics, Software or Other. Defaults to Machinery. |
| Purchase date | Yes | Acquisition date, and the date of the capitalisation entry. The period must be open. |
| Purchase value | Yes | The capitalised cost. Must be greater than zero. |
| Salvage value | Optional | Residual value. Depreciation stops once the written-down value reaches it. |
| Invoice ref | Optional | Vendor invoice reference, shown on the list as Invoice No. |
| Method | Yes | SLM (straight line) or WDV (written down). Defaults to SLM. |
| Useful life (years) | SLM only | Monthly charge becomes (cost − salvage) ÷ (years × 12). |
| Annual rate % | WDV only | Annual percentage applied to the reducing balance. |
| Asset head | Yes | The balance-sheet ledger this asset is capitalised into. |
| Accumulated dep head | Optional | Contra-asset ledger credited by depreciation. Leave blank to reduce the asset head directly. |
| Dep expense head | Optional | The profit-and-loss ledger debited monthly. Falls back to Other Expenses if blank. |
| Notes | Optional | Free text. |
A Depreciation preview panel on the right shows the cost, salvage, method and the monthly charge before you commit. Assets are numbered ASSET0001 onwards, with a configurable prefix.
Choosing one keeps the asset ledger at gross cost with depreciation accumulating separately — the presentation most auditors expect, and what Schedule II disclosure assumes. Leaving it blank nets depreciation straight off the asset head. Both work, but mixing the two across similar assets makes your fixed-asset note harder to prepare.
Raising an Asset Purchase Voucher
The form is grouped into four sections that follow the shape of a real purchase invoice.
Invoice and vendor
Enter the Voucher date, the vendor's Invoice no and Invoice date, then pick the Vendor from your master. A vendor is only mandatory when you are buying on credit; for a one-off cash purchase you can leave it blank and just type a display name.
Amounts and the GST decision
Enter the Asset cost, any Other charges such as freight and installation — these are always capitalised, which is the correct treatment — and the GST amount.
Then the important choice: the Claim GST as Input ITC checkbox, ticked by default. Leave it ticked when you are entitled to the credit, and the GST goes to your input ledger. Untick it when the credit is blocked — motor vehicles being the classic case — and the GST is capitalised into the asset cost instead, where it will be depreciated over the asset's life.
Settlement
Choose Pay now, which credits the bank you nominate, or On credit, which credits the vendor's payable so the bill sits in your ageing until paid. Pay-now vouchers check the bank actually has the balance before posting.
Register as asset
The last section holds the depreciation basis — name, category, method, life or rate, salvage, and the three ledger heads — exactly as on the direct registration form. These become the asset master. The Invoice summary rail shows the capitalised value and total invoice, with a live preview of the ledger entry and the estimated monthly depreciation.
Capitalised value = asset cost + other charges + GST (only when ITC is not claimed). Total invoice = asset cost + other charges + GST. The first is what gets depreciated; the second is what you pay.
Approval workflow
Approval is off by default — a voucher posts immediately, creating the asset and the ledger entry in one step. If you want capital spend reviewed before it hits the books, switch it on for the Asset Purchase row on the Approval Thresholds screen, optionally with a manager stage ahead of accounting.
With approval on, the voucher is saved as a request and moves through Manager pending and Accounting pending. Reviewers can approve, reject, send back for changes, or hold — each requiring a note that is written to an audit trail. Requests waiting on you appear in the asset approvals inbox.
While a voucher is pending, there is no asset row and no ledger entry — it is a request, not a purchase. The asset master and the capitalisation entry are both created at the moment accounting approves, which is why that button reads Approve & capitalise.
A posted voucher can be reversed with Cancel & reverse, which posts a reversing journal dated today and removes the asset. It is refused if the asset has already been depreciated — correctly, since reversing a capitalisation underneath posted depreciation would leave the books inconsistent.
Get your asset register right once
We will help you load your existing plant, set the methods and rates, and tie the opening net block back to your last audited balance sheet.
Start Free Trial Book a DemoRunning monthly depreciation
OEMup supports the two methods Indian companies actually use:
- SLM (straight line) — an equal charge each month: (cost − salvage) ÷ (useful life in years × 12).
- WDV (written down value) — a percentage of the reducing balance, so the charge falls each month as the asset depreciates.
Both stop automatically once the written-down value reaches the salvage value, so an asset can never depreciate below its residual.
An asset bought on the 28th gets a full month of depreciation for that month, exactly as one bought on the 1st. There is no pro-rata and no half-year convention. It rarely matters over an asset's life, but it is worth knowing when you capitalise something large right at a month end.
How to run it
Open Run Depreciation. The month picker defaults to last month, which is the normal thing to post. Click Run for <month> and confirm. One journal voucher covers every eligible asset, dated the last day of that month, and the screen reports the total posted and the number of assets covered.
Assets are included if they are active and were purchased on or before the month end, and if they still have depreciation left to charge. A Recent runs grid below shows each period, its voucher number, the asset count and the total.
Depreciation is never posted automatically by a background job — that is a deliberate design choice, so you can post it after the month's salary and interest accruals are in. The run is idempotent: a month that has already been posted cannot be posted again, which protects you from double-charging. Note that in the current release there is no user-facing action to reverse a posted run, so check the month before you confirm.
Disposal and write-off
Both actions live on the asset detail page and are only available while the asset is active. Neither can be undone, so both ask for confirmation showing the current written-down value and accumulated depreciation.
Dispose — when the asset was sold or scrapped
Enter the Disposal date, the Sale value (enter zero for scrapping with no proceeds), and the bank receiving the money if there are proceeds. OEMup compares the sale value against the written-down value and books the difference automatically — a gain to Other Income, or a loss to Other Expenses. The asset moves to Disposed and its written-down value becomes zero.
Write off — when there are no proceeds at all
For assets damaged beyond repair, technologically obsolete, or lost. Enter the date and a Reason, which is appended to both the asset's notes and the journal narration so the story survives in the ledger. The entire remaining written-down value is charged as a loss and the asset moves to Written off.
The Asset Register report
This is the screen your auditor will want. It runs in two modes:
- As-of — the position on a single date: cost, accumulated depreciation and written-down value per asset, with totals.
- Movement — the reconciliation between two dates: opening written-down value, additions, depreciation, disposals and closing written-down value. This is the Schedule II–style movement schedule expected in the fixed-asset note to the accounts.
Both export to Excel with a totals row. Figures are built by replaying the posted depreciation runs and bucketing them by the period the depreciation is for, not when you executed it — so posting March's depreciation late, in May, still reports it correctly in March.
What gets posted to the ledger
Every posting in this module is a journal voucher:
| Action | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Register an asset | Asset head, at purchase value | Opening Balance Equity |
| Post an asset purchase | Asset head at capitalised value; GST Input when ITC is claimed | Bank (pay now) or vendor payable (on credit), at total invoice |
| Cancel & reverse a purchase | Bank or vendor payable | Asset head; GST Input |
| Monthly depreciation | Depreciation expense head | Accumulated depreciation head, or the asset head if none was chosen |
| Dispose | Bank (proceeds) + accumulated depreciation; plus Other Expenses on a loss | Asset head; plus Other Income on a gain |
| Write off | Accumulated depreciation + Other Expenses for the remaining value | Asset head |
Depreciation is aggregated per ledger head, so one voucher covers the whole month across every asset rather than cluttering the day book with dozens of lines. Every posting is checked against Period Close — a closed month rejects the entry.
Asset statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ACTIVE | In use and depreciating. |
| DISPOSED | Sold or scrapped through the Dispose action. |
| WRITTEN OFF | Written off as a pure loss, or removed by cancelling its purchase voucher. |
| SCRAPPED | Appears in the list filter, but no action sets it today — use Dispose with a zero sale value instead. |
Permissions
Although the menu shows several separate screens, the API enforces a single submodule — Accounting → Fixed Assets — across all of them. The other keys (Asset Purchase, Asset Register, Run Depreciation, Asset Approvals) only control whether the menu item and page are visible.
- View — asset list and detail, purchase vouchers, the register report, depreciation history.
- Add — register an asset, raise a purchase voucher.
- Update — run depreciation, dispose, write off, and every approval transition.
- Delete — cancel and reverse a posted purchase voucher.
The practical consequence: a user without Fixed Assets → Update cannot run depreciation or approve a purchase, however their Run Depreciation or Asset Approvals permissions are set. Grant Update to whoever closes the month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use Add Fixed Asset or an Asset Purchase Voucher?
Which depreciation methods are supported?
Is depreciation posted automatically each month?
Does OEMup calculate part-month depreciation?
What is the difference between Dispose and Write off?
Can I edit an asset after registering it?
Can I claim GST input credit on an asset purchase?
Related
- Loans manual — the financing side of a machinery purchase
- All module manuals
- Accounting & GST features overview