Posting depreciation journals is the process of making periodical adjustments to your general ledger to add a depreciation expense to the P&L whilst balancing with the same reduction of the capital amount in your fixed asset account on the balance sheet.
The depreciation account will be debited, and the respective accumulated depreciation account will be credited.
For example, in the case of an asset disposal, AssetAccountant calculates the profit/loss and write back items like cost and depreciation to the journals for easy posting back to your GL. The AssetAccountant software can also execute disposals (and many other fixed asset transactions) in bulk to minimise the time you need to spend processing these transactions.
AssetAccountant gives you various options as to how these journals are posted.
If you are acquiring assets in AssetAccountant, but NOT in your GL, then you would select all of the posting options as per below.
This is also the case if you are using one of our integration partners (e.g. Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, etc.) and your fixed assets are being purchased and entered to a clearing account upon purchase. Upon posting the journal, with the below selections being made, the clearing account will be zero'd.
Alternatively if the acquisition cost or disposal receipt has already been picked up and allocated to the fixed asset account in your GL, then you would uncheck the appropriate box, thus choosing not include the addition/disposal $ in your journal.
To which accounts the debits and credits for journals are posted, please refer to:
Setting up and mapping GL accounts for asset groups, for posting journals (integrations)
Below is an example output of an AssetAccountant periodic journal including a classification split for location.
Do journal entries post in summary or in detail asset-by-asset?
As you can see below, journals are posted by Asset Group, which avoids the possibility of having literally thousands and thousands of line items per journal posting if journals were posted per asset.
If you are having trouble understanding your journal output, AssetAccountant provides a clickable "Show details" link to show you the individual assets in detail that makes up the summary journal entries. You should review each line of your journal which will reveal any individual changes you have made to assets in the period you are creating the journal for.
AssetAccountant also provides the option to post granular Clearing Account transactions to journals, to facilitate bank account reconciliations.
This is an example journal output to spreadsheet if you are NOT integrated to one of our integration partner GL's:
