Owning things and keeping them running

Two different modules describe the same machine. Fixed assets answers what it is worth and how that value declines; Asset Management answers how it is kept working. Books, depreciation, disposal, functional locations and maintenance work orders.

What you will be able to do

Introduction

The financial controller sees an item on the balance sheet: it cost a certain amount, it has depreciated by a certain amount, and it will eventually be disposed of. The maintenance engineer sees something that runs, breaks, needs servicing every eight hundred hours, and has a spares list.

Fixed assets: what it is worth

A fixed asset is the record. Assets are classified into asset groups, which supply defaults: which books apply, what depreciation settings to start from, and the number sequence for assets in that group.

Asset Management: keeping it running

A functional location is the place — a production line, a station, a room, a position in the plant. A maintenance asset is the thing installed there.

The relationship, and who owns it

The two registers describe overlapping populations. Not everything financial is maintained — a building's fixtures may never appear in a maintenance plan. Not everything maintained is a fixed asset — a low-value tool may be maintained but expensed.

Getting the opening position right

It is tempting — one figure per asset, and depreciation continues from there. But it destroys the history:

Knowledge check

Summary

Two modules describe the same machine, and both are needed for a complete answer.