What’s in the template
The workbook has four sheets. Register is the list itself, with the financial year end and your capitalisation threshold at the top. Summary turns it into cost and depreciation movements by category, the figures behind the fixed assets note in the accounts, and checks them against your trial balance. Categories suggests useful lives, and Instructions explains each column.
It starts with four example assets for a company with a 31 March year end. The charges follow the same rules as our depreciation calculator, so you can check any line there.
| Asset | Cost | Charge for the year | Net book value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laptop, 14-inch: Straight line, 3 years | £1,800.00 | £600.00 | £1,100.00 |
| Delivery van: Straight line, 5 years | £24,000.00 | £3,333.33 | £20,666.67 |
| Packing machine: Reducing balance, 25% | £10,000.00 | £1,757.81 | £5,273.44 |
| Office desks and chairs: Straight line, 5 years, sold 14 November 2026 | £4,800.00 | £560.00 | Disposed |
| Total | £6,251.14 | £27,040.11 |
The columns to keep, and why
Each column answers a question someone will ask later: an auditor, a buyer of the business, or you at the next year end.
- Asset ID, description, category and location or owner let you find the asset and confirm it still exists. A register full of laptops nobody can locate overstates the balance sheet.
- Supplier, invoice reference and purchase date are the evidence for the cost, and tie each line back to the bookkeeping.
- Cost, residual value, method, useful life or rate, and depreciation start are everything the charge depends on. Depreciation starts when the asset is ready for use, which can be later than the purchase date.
- Accumulated depreciation brought forward, charge for the year, carried forward and net book value show the year’s movement for each asset.
- Disposal date, proceeds, gain or loss and status close the asset off when it leaves the business.
Updating the register at year end
- Add the year’s additions from purchase invoices coded to fixed asset accounts. Check repairs and office costs for anything over your threshold that belongs on the register.
- Record disposals: the date the asset went, and the proceeds, or £0 if it was scrapped.
- Check the year end at the top of the Register. The charge is worked out to that date, with a full month in the month depreciation starts and none in the month of disposal.
- Post the total charge for each category: debit depreciation, credit accumulated depreciation. If you post monthly, the year’s journals should add up to the same figure.
- Roll forward. Save a copy, paste this year’s accumulated depreciation carried forward over the brought forward column as values, change the year end and move last year’s disposals to a separate sheet.
Reconciling the register to the trial balance
The register and the ledger are two records of the same assets, and at each year end they must agree. On the Summary sheet, enter the cost and accumulated depreciation for each category from the trial balance. Every difference should be £0, and the total charge should match the depreciation expense in the profit and loss.
| Cost | Accumulated depreciation | |
|---|---|---|
| At 1 April 2026 | £16,600.00 | £6,508.75 |
| Additions and charge for the year | £24,000.00 | £6,251.14 |
| Disposals | (£4,800.00) | (£4,000.00) |
| At 31 March 2027 | £35,800.00 | £8,759.89 |
| Net book value at 31 March 2027 | £27,040.11 | |
When the figures don’t agree, the cause is usually an invoice coded to a fixed asset account but missing from the register, a disposal recorded in one place and not the other, a depreciation journal posted with a different amount, or an item under the threshold capitalised by mistake. Find the line and correct whichever record is wrong, rather than posting a balancing figure. Reconciled fixed assets are one of the balances that management accounts depend on, alongside prepayments and accruals from our prepayments and accruals calculator.
Recording a disposal
When an asset is sold or scrapped, compare the proceeds with its net book value on the date it goes. In the example, the office desks and chairs cost £4,800.00 in September 2022 and are depreciated over five years. They are sold on 14 November 2026 for £600.00. Depreciation runs to the end of October, 50 months or £4,000.00, which leaves a net book value of £800.00 and a loss of £200.00.
The journal removes both sides of the asset: debit accumulated depreciation £4,000.00, bank £600.00 and loss on disposal £200.00, and credit the cost account £4,800.00. Keep the line on the register for the year of disposal, so the cost and depreciation removed appear in that year’s movements.
Setting a capitalisation threshold
A capitalisation threshold is the cost below which a purchase is expensed instead of added to the register. No accounting standard sets the figure: it is an accounting policy your company chooses, based on what is material to its accounts. A company might choose £500, so a £120 office chair is expensed and a £640 monitor is capitalised. Write the policy down, apply it to every purchase and decide how to treat items bought together, such as ten laptops for a new team. The template highlights any cost below the threshold you enter.
The template covers depreciation in the accounts only. Tax treatment of assets follows different rules and is out of scope.