Depreciation is a method of allocating the cost of a fixed asset over its estimated useful life.  

Fields Involved in Tracking Depreciation

In order to track depreciation, the depreciation information of an item record must be complete. This includes:

Life-to-Date Depreciation Calculation

The life-to-date (LTD) depreciation field should equal the total depreciation for the item through June of the last fiscal year closed.  For example, January 1, 2022, the LTD depreciation for an asset would be from the beginning date of depreciation through June 30, 2021 (assuming the last fiscal year closed is 2021). Closing a period via Core>Fiscal Years will update the LTD depreciation amount by one year.

Depreciation is actually tracked monthly in the application. A beginning date is entered to begin depreciating the item. The first year, the depreciation posted to the LTD depreciation field will be the annual depreciation amount pro-rated based on the number of months the item is actually being depreciated.  For example, if an item has a depreciation beginning date of 01/01/2022, only one-half (6 months) of the annual depreciation amount will be posted to the LTD depreciation. In subsequent years, the entire annual depreciation amount will be posted to the LTD depreciation field.

When generating a Book Value report during the fiscal year, the depreciation reported is the LTD depreciation plus depreciation for the current fiscal year (YTD Depreciation). The depreciation for the current fiscal year is calculated on a monthly basis as the report is generated.  The Book Value calculation is Original Cost - Total Depreciation.

Depreciation Methods

The depreciation method is required on an item. The methods available are None, Straight-Line, or Declining-Balance. However, since straight line depreciation is the most-widely used by school districts, we will focus on this method.

Straight-Line Method

Straight-line method is the cost minus estimated salvage value spread proportionally over the estimated life of the asset. The basic formula for computing straight-line depreciation is:

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So if an item has an original cost of $10,000 with an estimated useful life of 5 years and a salvage value of $1,000, it would have an annual (FTD) depreciation of $1800 computed as follows:

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However the Inventory application uses a slightly different calculation from the straight-line method. The total depreciation as of the end of the last fiscal year (called Life-to-date Depreciation) is stored for each item. The system uses the following calculation for annual depreciation. The depreciation for a part of a year will be the annual depreciation pro-rated for the number of months involved.

This formula protects the calculation from being sensitive to changes in original cost, life expectancy, etc. Thus, if an improvement (additional acquisition) is done to an item, the amount of depreciation taken from that point on will reflect the increase or decrease to the original cost. Depreciation already taken in prior years will not be affected.  Listed below are two examples of calculating depreciation for the life of the items. 

Tag #1: $10,000 original cost depreciated over 5 years acquired 01/01/2015 (FY15) with a salvage value of 1000.00.  The item should be completely depreciated in five years.

Tag #2: $10,000 asset with no salvage value, a beginning depreciation date of 01/01/2015 and an additional acquisition added to the item on 12/01/2017 (FY18).

*NOTE:  Regardless of the DD (day) entered for the beginning depreciation date, depreciation calculates for the full month.

Declining Balance Method

The declining-balance method of computing depreciation yields greater than pro rata deductions during the earlier years of life and less than pro rata deductions during the later years. The effect is to reduce the income tax payable in the earlier years and correspondingly increase the amount of funds available to pay for the asset or to increase working capital. Therefore this method of depreciation is not applicable to school districts.

The declining-balance method applies a uniform rate of not more than twice the straight-line rate to the unrecovered basis of the property. Estimated salvage value need not be considered in computing the rate or the base. For example, if the declining-balance method at twice the straight-line rate were applied to a $10,000 asset with an estimated life of 5 years and estimated salvage of $1000, the accelerated rate would be 40% and the initial base against which the rate would be applied would be $10,000. However, an asset may not be depreciated below its estimated salvage value. This method is illustrated in the following table.

The EIS system allows you to enter a "factor", which should be greater than 1 but not greater than 2 to use in calculating declining-balance depreciation. The example above is illustrated using a factor of 2, commonly referred to as the "double-declining balance" method. The formula utilized by EIS to calculate annual depreciation is:

1 Estimated Useful Life
* Factor * Book Value

The annual depreciation will be pro-rated based on the number of months being depreciated to come up with a monthly depreciation amount.

Depreciate option

The Depreciate option in Transactions>Items re-calculates the LTD depreciation field from the LAST fiscal year closed from scratch. This option can be run after making changes to the depreciation information for existing items where it warrants LTD depreciation to be recalculated. This usually occurs when a district is cleaning up data from a spreadsheet import for a new inventory load or in preparation for GAAP reporting.  The depreciate option does not calculate the depreciation for assets added in the current period (these assets only have FTD depreciation at this point - no LTD depreciation is calculated until after the year has been closed).  Only items whose depreciation has been changed by the program will be included on the report.

Once a district is actively tracking depreciation, this option should be used with extreme caution because it does not protect the original depreciation tracking of assets where their original cost was changed mid-life.  For example,  this option would not be appropriate for items which have been depreciated for some years, and then had the original cost increased (additional acquisition created).  The inventory system will pro-rate the newly updated original cost over the remaining life of the asset without disturbing any prior depreciation. However, the depreciate option would recalculate LTD depreciate for these items using the increased original cost from the beginning.

Normally depreciated item:

Tag A's original cost is $5000 depreciated over 5 years.  The yearly depreciation is $1000.  If in year 4, I create an additional acquisition thus updating the original cost to $7000, my yearly depreciation for the remaining life of the asset is now $2000.   It will not disturb prior year depreciation.

Running Deprecation Option

If I run depreciate on Tag A, it will recalculate LTD depreciation from scratch using the current original cost of $7000

As you can see, the original tracking of depreciation on the life of the asset is altered.

Depreciation Transactions

LTD depreciation field is not modifiable when editing an item in Transactions>Items. If you want to change an item’s existing LTD depreciation to a specific value, you must edit the item and post a Depreciation Transaction.  A Depreciation Transaction can only be created for active items that have not been fully depreciated and can only be created for the current fiscal year.  The amount entered will be added (or subtracted if entering a negative adjustment) to the existing LTD amount.  

• Internal Type Depreciation Transactions are created when a period is closed.  Internal type depreciation transactions cannot be deleted.  

• Adjustment Type Depreciation Transactions are created by the user.  It will automatically populate the fiscal year based on the current period.  You must be in that current period in order edit or delete an Adjustment type depreciation transaction.