Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Overview of Fixed Assets.
Most businesses must account for fixed assets such as land,
buildings, equipment, furniture, and vehicles.
This video covers the basics of how to set up fixed assets,
calculate depreciation, and how to register maintenance costs
and insurance coverage for them in Business Central. We'll also
touch on some useful reports.
Let's go explore. Fixed asset features are available on the Accounant role center,
but we can use Search in any role center to find them.
To get started with fixed assets, we'll need to set up a few things first.
The Fixed Asset Setup page gives us access to
everything we need to get going.
We can define the number series to use for our fixed assets,
the Journal template and batches we'll use for posting, how
we categorize assets, and the posting groups we need for accounting.
There are two levels of categories.
The Fixed Asset Class and Fixed Asset Subclass codes.
Class codes are broad groupings.
For example, we might have categories such as tangible and
intangible assets.
Subclass codes are more specific,
such as vehicles, furniture, and machinery,
and contain the default fixed asset posting group that determines
where transactions are posted in the general ledger.
Typically, we'd have different accounts for posting for different subclasses of items.
Another important setup is the fixed asset posting groups. To
set up these groups, we'll choose Posting, and then FA Posting Groups.
Posting groups define the general ledger accounts that we'll post transactions
to for subclasses. Depending on how we want fixed assets
to affect our chart of accounts, we'll have several groups.
For example, we'll define general ledger accounts for acquisition cost,
accumulated depreciation, depreciation expense, and so on.
The sample data we have in this video uses the
same account for everything, but in the real world these
would typically be a combination of accounts.
Let's choose Fixed Assets to open the fixed assets list
page and explore the setup for an asset.
We can choose a fixed asset class and subclass,
add a picture, a serial number
and a date from which we want to start depreciating the asset,
which is usually the acquisition date.
We can also choose a depreciation method for the asset,
which will depend on the asset type,
its business use and local accounting requirements.
Now we can acquire the asset, which we can do in several ways.
We can use the assisted setup guide, or post to a
fixed asset general journal.
A link to the assisted setup guide is conveniently available
in the notification,
so that's what we'll use.
Let's acquire a delivery van.
Our acquisition cost, including tax, is $20,000.
And we'll say we bought it on the 1st of March.
In the Post to field, we'll choose Vendor so that
we can choose the vendor we purchase it from.
We also need to provide the external document number,
which is typically the ID of the invoice we received from the vendor.
Business Central creates journal entries that we can review
and adjust if we need to, before we post them.
Periodically, we'll need to calculate depreciation for our fixed assets.
Let's calculate depreciation. We'll start on the fixed assets list
page, where we'll choose Process and then Calculate Depreciation.
We have a number of options.
For example, we can apply filters to calculate depreciation only
for specific assets.
But we'll keep things simple and just calculate depreciation for
everything for one month
by just choosing dates in the fixed asset posting date
and posting date fields.
We'll choose OK to run the calculation.
Now let's open the Fixed Assets G/L Journals page to
have a look at our calculations.
If we want, we can dig into the details of
the journal by opening it in Excel.
But we'll go ahead and post the journal by choosing
Posting, and then Post.
There are several reports we can use to analyze
depreciation for our assets.
For example, we can choose Report and then Analysis to
view details, such as their book values and transactions for
the month of April.
If we want, we can print the analysis per asset.
Business Central also lets us manage insurance and maintenance for our fixed assets.
Let's choose Insurance to open the Insurance Card page.
This is where we manage the details about this insurance policy.
For example, we have the policy number,
the type of insurance policy,
the coverage amount, expiration date,
and so on. After we enter information about our insurance policy,
we can use insurance journals to assign it to the
fixed assets it covers and post the cost associated with the policy.
The insurance page also gives us access to reports.
For example, we can identify assets that we have not
insured, or view how much insurance we have for each asset.
Now let's look at maintenance for fixed assets.
When we service an asset,
we can use the Maintenance Registration page to record what we did.
We can record the date that the service was performed,
specify the vendor who did the work, and add information
about what was done.
The Fixed Asset Maintenance Register provides an overview of the
services for our fixed assets.
To post maintenance costs, we use the Fixed Assets General Ledger Journals page,
where we can choose Maintenance in the FA Posting Type
field to specify that the amount we're posting is for a service.
We can use fixed asset general journals to post depreciation,
appreciation, write-downs, revaluations, and so on.
So let's jump over the reports for fixed assets.
There are a number of different reports that can help
us manage our fixed assets effectively.
Some reports simply list our fixed assets,
insurance, maintenance, and so on,
but also reports are displayed for accounting information for our
fixed assets - such as book value reports,
depreciation reports, and so on. Business Central provides a
complete module for handling your fixed assets.
Thanks for watching.