How to Manage Asset Categories

How to manage asset categories

Categories classify what an asset is. They are more than a label — they carry depreciation configuration and can carry maintenance schedules.

Requirements

• Available on: All plans
• Roles: Owner and Admin can create, edit, and archive categories. Managers, Employees and Viewers can read them.

Where to find them

Dashboard → Categories.

Creating a category

1. Go to Dashboard → Categories.
2. Click New Category.
3. Give it a name, and optionally a parent category.
4. Save.

Categories are hierarchical

Categories nest to any depth:

IT Equipment
 └── Portable
      └── Laptops

Filtering by a category includes everything beneath it. Filtering on "IT Equipment" returns the laptops filed under "IT Equipment → Portable → Laptops". You do not have to select every child.

Depreciation configuration

This is the part people miss. A category carries:

• Depreciation method — straight line, declining balance, double declining, written-down value, MACRS, or sum-of-years-digits
• Useful life
• Rate
• Residual value percentage
• MACRS property class

Financial treatment is declared once per class of asset rather than per asset. An asset with no category has no depreciation configuration and therefore no book value.

(Depreciation and cost analytics need Orbit or above.)

Preventive maintenance on a category

A PM rule attached to a category governs every asset in it, including assets added later. A new pump filed under "Pumps" inherits the pump service schedule without anyone remembering to attach it.

This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do with categories.

Designing a category tree

Match how you buy and depreciate, not how things look. Categories carry financial treatment, so the tree should group things that share one.

Start shallow. Two or three levels covers most organizations. Depth you do not need makes filtering tedious.

Do not encode location or department. Those are separate structures with their own fields. "Laptops – Manchester" as a category means you can never ask about laptops across all sites.

Archiving

Categories are archived, not deleted. Archiving keeps history attributable and the action is reversible.

Common mistakes

Leaving assets uncategorised. No category means no depreciation configuration, no net book value, and no category-level maintenance schedule.

Building a fifty-category tree on day one. Start with the classes you actually own and add as you go.

Mixing categories with locations or departments. See Categories, locations and departments explained.

Creating a category per manufacturer. Manufacturer is already a field on the asset.

Troubleshooting

I can't create a category. Creating and editing categories needs Owner or Admin.

My category isn't in the asset form dropdown. Check it is not archived.

An asset has no book value. Its category has no depreciation configuration, or the asset has no category. Also check the asset has a purchase cost and date.

Filtering by a parent category returns nothing. It should return everything beneath it. Check the assets are actually filed under a descendant.

I can't delete a category. Categories archive rather than delete, so history stays attributable.

Related articles

• Categories, locations and departments explained
• How to set up preventive maintenance
• Asset value and depreciation report
• Managing departments
• Creating and managing locations
• Organization structure best practices