How to generate depreciation and asset value reports
UniAsset computes what your assets are worth from what you recorded — never from an estimate.
Requirements
- Available on: Orbit, Odyssey, Cosmos
- Roles: Owner, Admin, Manager
Before you start
Depreciation needs three things in place. Without them there is nothing to compute.
- Purchase cost and purchase date on the asset. The acquisition date drives the schedule.
- A category on the asset.
- Depreciation configuration on that category — method, useful life, rate, and residual value percentage. See Managing categories.
Optionally, a salvage value on the asset sets a floor below which book value will not fall.
Steps
- Go to Dashboard → Reports.
- Open the Depreciation tab for book values and schedules.
- For the audit-ready view, open Assets → Fixed asset register.
- Filter as needed and export to CSV, Excel, or PDF.
The six depreciation methods
Configured per category:
| Method | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Straight line | Even spread across the useful life |
| Declining balance | Faster write-down in early years |
| Double declining | Accelerated declining balance |
| Written-down value | A fixed percentage of the remaining value each year |
| MACRS | US tax reporting, using the category's property class |
| Sum-of-years-digits | Accelerated, weighted by remaining life |
Choose the one your accountant uses. Financial treatment is declared once per category rather than per asset.
The Fixed Asset Register
The Fixed Asset Register is a compliance-ready, point-in-time statement of gross cost, accumulated depreciation, and net book value per asset.
It has filters and a snapshot export for audit and year-end reporting, and disposed assets can be included — which is what makes it usable for a full-year statement rather than only a current-inventory view.
Reach it at Dashboard → Reports → Assets → Fixed asset register, or directly at Dashboard → Reports → Fixed Asset Register.
Related figures
Net book value is computed per asset and rolled up across the portfolio.
Total cost of ownership is purchase price plus cumulative recorded maintenance spend — a different question from book value. See TCO analysis.
Honest numbers
Financial figures are derived from recorded data, never estimated. Where the underlying data is incomplete, UniAsset says so rather than fabricating a figure.
That is what makes the output citable in a board pack or an audit — and it is why filling in purchase cost and date matters more than it looks.
Use asset intelligence to find assets missing purchase data before you run a report you intend to rely on.
Common mistakes
Expecting depreciation without a category. No category means no depreciation configuration and no book value.
Leaving purchase date blank. Depreciation uses the actual acquisition date. Without it there is no schedule.
Choosing a method without asking finance. The method affects reported figures. This is their call.
Assuming the register excludes disposed assets. It can include them, which is usually what an auditor wants.
Troubleshooting
The Depreciation tab is locked. Depreciation and cost analytics need Orbit or above.
Reports opens on "By status" instead of the register. Organizations without depreciation access default to a report they can actually see. Upgrade to reach the register.
An asset shows no book value. Check it has a purchase cost, a purchase date, a category, and that the category has depreciation configured.
Book value looks too low. Check the salvage value on the asset — it sets a floor, and an unexpectedly low one is usually a data entry issue.
I can't see Reports at all. Viewing reports needs Manager or above.
The currency is wrong. Currency is set per organization at Settings → Organization.
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