Step 14: Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods

Regardless of the Date of Purchase or Fiscal Year basis assigned to any depreciation method, you must establish your accounting periods and fiscal years in Costpoint Fixed Assets.

The Fixed Assets Calendar menu contains three separate screens: Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years, Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods, and Update FA FY/Pd Information from GL FY/Pd Information. You need not set up future fiscal years and periods in the General Ledger for Fixed Assets use, because functionality for both current and future fiscal year/period data resides in its entirety with Fixed Assets to accommodate the computation of current period depreciation expense as well as projected depreciation expense.

Enter data during initialization in the required Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods screens. You can manually enter data on these screens or you can use the optional Update FA FY/Pd Information from GL FY/Pd Information screen to automatically populate these screens with fiscal year data already existing in the General Ledger. For either mode of entry, it is critical for correct depreciation computations and reporting, and proper closing of the last Fixed Assets period of the year that Fixed Assets years be set up in order in the Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years screen with the oldest year listed at the top of the screen.

Data set up on the required Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods screens is not validated against data in the General Ledger because of the ability to add future time periods for use with the projected depreciation expense functionality.

Note: Although the system permits Fiscal Year/Period (FY/Pd) data in Fixed Assets that is inconsistent with General Ledger data, use extreme caution when entering different data or editing existing data. To avoid potential Fixed Assets calculation, posting, and closing problems, FY/Pd data in Fixed Assets should be identical to existing data set up for comparable fiscal years/periods in the General Ledger.

Regardless of the Date of Purchase or Fiscal Year basis assigned to any depreciation method on the Manage Depreciation Methods screen, you must set up all FY/Pd/Subperiod data in Costpoint General Ledger for at least the current fiscal year.

You should, at a minimum, enter data for the current fiscal year and data for the next two future fiscal years in Fixed Assets to enable current period depreciation expense calculations. If you do NOT set up this data before computing depreciation, incorrect data may display in the Current Pd Depreciation field(s) of the G/L Book Info tab and Other Books Info subtask of the Manage Asset Master Information screen (and on the Manage Asset General Ledger Book Information and Manage Asset Other Books Information screens) after depreciation is computed for new records.

In addition, blanks will display in the report produced by running the Compute/Update Depreciation Computation Data utility (in the Current Depr Yr and Days/Pds Remaining fields) for any asset record for which no corresponding FY/Pd data is found on the Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods screens for the fiscal year indicated in the Depr Start Date field(s) of the Asset Master record.

If you plan to use the Compute/Update Depreciation Computation Data utility to verify (and optionally update) data in the Depr Start Date, Current Depr Yr, and Days/Pds Remaining fields for your historical assets, you must also set up FY/Pd data in Fixed Assets for the historical fiscal years that correspond to the Depr Start Date field(s) of the G/L Book Info tab and Other Books Info subtask on the Manage Asset Master Information screen (and directly on the Manage Asset General Ledger Book Information and Manage Asset Other Books Information screens), as applicable). In addition, reports that provide asset data as of an historical point in time such as the Print Fixed Assets/General Ledger Reconcilation Report or the Print Schedule of Asset Activity Report will not be able to include assets where the Acquisition Fiscal Year and Period in the Purch Info tab of Manage Asset Master Information has not been set up for Fixed Assets. Further, in order to use the projections functionality, you should add fiscal year/accounting period data for each future year for which you will compute projected depreciation expense.

If you have assigned a Date of Purchase basis to one or more depreciation methods on the Manage Depreciation Methods screen AND you have also selected the "Catch-Up" calculation option on the Configure Fixed Assets Settings screen that adds missed depreciation for prior periods in the current year to the current period depreciation amount, the system displays a soft warning message before computing to ensure historical fiscal years and periods have been set up for Fixed Assets.

In order to ensure the proper calculation of depreciation under these conditions, make sure that you have first set up historical fiscal year and period data on the Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods screens. Please refer to the documentation for these screens for additional information.

You should set up the data referenced in the warning message on a one-time basis for each year specified in the depreciation start date assigned to your Asset Master records for which there is remaining book value.

Alternately, if you do not want to add historical fiscal year and period data on the Manage Fixed Assets Fiscal Years and Manage Fixed Assets Accounting Periods screens, you can change the "Catch-Up" calculation option on the Configure Fixed Assets Settings screen to spread missed depreciation for prior periods among the remaining periods in the current year.