Fixed asset tracking and the Fixed Asset Manager
Tracking the book value of long-term assets as they decline over time can bea tricky business. The amount by which they depreciate can affect notonly the worth of a business, but the size of a tax bill. It's important todevelop good record-keeping habits where such fixed assets are concerned.It's also important for accountants and their clients to work together tomake sure all the necessary information is being recorded so both financialstatements and tax returns are correct.
QuickBooks can help both accountants and small businessowners using fixed asset items and the Fixed Asset Manager.
On the small business side
Tracking fixed assets with fixed asset items enables you to record suchinformation about an asset as purchase date and price, whether the asset wasnew or used when purchased, and the asset's sale price if you decide tosell it. You can also generate customizable reports listing all your fixedassets.
To see examples of fixed asset items, open the product-based sample companyfile for Rock Castle Construction, then go to the Lists menu and clickFixed Asset Item List.
On the accountant's side
When the Fixed Asset Manager is started from within either a QuickBooksAccountant or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions edition, it pulls in informationabout fixed assets from an open company file. Then the accountant can determinedepreciation for the assets and post a journal entry back to the company file.The accountant can also enter assets in the Fixed Asset Manager and send thatinformation back to QuickBooks.
The Fixed Asset Manager integrates with Intuit's ProSeries Tax products,which makes it easier to get asset information from QuickBooks into ProSeriesTax.
Here are some of the features the Fixed Asset Manager offers:
Tight integration with QuickBooks data.
A detailed, customizable asset entry screen.
Six depreciation bases (Book, State, Federal, Other, AMT, ACE).
Projected depreciation calculations.
Disposition tracking.
Custom queries and sorting.
Full calculation overrides.
A wide variety of built-in depreciation reports and forms.
Multiple ways to export and import data.
Integration with ProSeries Tax products.
In addition to synchronizing data with QuickBooks, the Fixed Asset Managerhas its own data files that can hold more detailed asset information than acompany (QBW) file can hold.
To open the Fixed Asset Manager, go to the Accountant menu and click Manage Fixed Assets.
To open the Fixed Asset Manager, go to the Company menu and click Manage Fixed Assets.
To see an example of a file with information you can pull into the FixedAsset Manager, open the product-based sample company file for Rock Castle Construction. To view the fixed asset items includedin the file, go to the Lists menu and click Fixed Asset Item List.
For more information, see the Fixed Asset Manager help.
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