GP Controller Series: Improving Fixed Asset Month End

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Dynamics GP’s Fixed Asset module is both flexible and robust. It’s more than capable of dealing with fixed asset management for most organizations. However, it does have a few idiosyncracies. Once those have been mastered, working with assets in GP is much easier. Here are things you need to understand of to really master Fixed Assets:

The fixed asset module has its own calendar in Tools-Setup-FixedAssets-Quarter. This drives depreciation settings and it usually only has to be set up once. Still, it’s important to review the setup to ensure that it matches the fiscal calendar. If they don’t match, depreciation ends up in all the wrong periods.
Fixed Asset Account setup doesn’t work like other subledgers in GP. In GP Fixed Assets, accounts are assigned to classes, just like other subledgers. New assets are assigned a class and that assigns accounts, just like other subledgers. Where it changes is that these are one-time assignments. The class is used to set the account but is not retained with the asset. There is a separate account window to change or set accounts manually for each asset. If an asset is posting in the wrong place, the account needs to be correct on the asset, regardless of the class that was used to set it up.
Separate posting depreciation from posting asset additions/changes/retirements. This is a best practice that dramatically improves asset subledger to GL reconciliation. By separating these processes, asset additions, changes, and retirements don’t get lost in a sea of depreciation. In my experience, most reconciliation issues are found outside of depreciation. Depreciation posting issues are usually fixed once with an account change so they shouldn’t contribute to regularly to reconciliation issues. In older versions of GP, this is managed with ordering the process. In newer versions, the source type (FADEP = Depreciation, FAADD = Additions, etc.) can be used to segregate the GL posting.
When someone is stuck troubleshooting a fixed asset reconciliation, the Financial Detail window found via Inquiry-Fixed Asset-Financial Detail shows everything that happens to an asset and is key to finding and fixing issues.

There are additional details in the resources below.