Product Information
Support Spotlight: Tips to Change Life Parameters for Fixed Assets in SAP Business One
During the life of a fixed asset in a company, it might be required to adjust some life parameters, for example Depreciation Start Date, Useful Life, Depreciation Type.
This article will help you understand the prerequisite to change life parameters for fixed assets and the consequence of the changes.
Depreciation Start Date
Depreciation Start Date can be automatically determined by Capitalization Date (Asset Value Date in Capitalization Document) and the Depreciation Convention specified for the depreciation type (Depreciation Types – Setup – General Tab).
Depreciation Start Date can also be specified manually. The field is editable when the following conditions are met:
•The asset has been capitalized.
•The fiscal year you select is the year during which the capitalization takes place.
•The depreciation area is not a derived area.
Example
An asset capitalized in year 2019:
Depreciation start date can be changed for depreciation area 100 when you select fiscal year 2019. Depreciation start date cannot be changed for depreciation area 300 since it is a derived area.
Consequence
After you save the change, the system automatically recalculates the Depreciation End Date and Planned Depreciation and updates the asset-relevant values.
Here is Demo of above example.
Useful Life
Useful Life must be specified when creating the fixed assets master data.
The useful life can be changed before it reaches the end of asset’s life. It is not possible to change useful life if the remaining life for the selected fiscal year is 0.
Example
Useful life cannot be changed for fiscal year 2021 since the remaining life at the beginning of fiscal year 2021 is 0.
Consequence
After you save the change, the planned depreciation will be recalculated starting from the fiscal year selected when the change is made.
Here is a Demo of above example.
Depreciation Type
Depreciation Type must be specified when creating the fixed assets master data. The Depreciation Type can be changed any time.
Consequence
After you save the change, the planned depreciation will be recalculated starting from the fiscal year selected when the change is made.
If the change of depreciation start date will cause mismatch between the recalculated planned depreciation and the posted depreciation, the difference will be adjusted automatically in your next depreciation run.
Here is a Demo of example.
Support Spotlight Series
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Hi Ivy,
Is there any possibility of changing the Useful Life during the posting period and recalculating asset depreciation from the specific month, not from the start of the fiscal year?
Hi Amber,
No. The change of useful life applies to the whole fiscal year.
Thank you for the reply Ivy,
Our Fiscal year starts in July. We already post 3 months of depreciation through the depreciation run. From the 4th month of the fiscal year, our policy changed and the useful life of the asset increased. This results in changes in depreciation value from the start of the fiscal year, not from the 4th month. Due to this our calculation of the remaining 9 months changed from the actual depreciation.
Will you suggest a procedure to handle this problem?
Hi Amber,
It is not possible to have different useful life for the months within the same fiscal year.
If you expect different planned depreciation for different months in the same fiscal year without APC change, the only thing I can think of is to use depreciation type Straight Line Period Control for the specific year.
If you would like to try with it, you can test in a copy of the customer's live database and check whether it can meet your requirement.
Kindly note that SAP does not provide consulting for specific business scenario.
It is your customer's responsibility to do complete testing, evaluate the result and decide whether to use it.
We appreciate your understanding!
Hi Ivy,
Thanks for the Straight Line Period Control suggestion. It is working well in my scenario. Really appreciated.