Basic Depreciation Calculation (Oracle Assets Help)


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Basic Depreciation Calculation

Prorate Date

Oracle Assets prorates the depreciation taken for an asset in its first fiscal year of life according to the prorate date. Oracle Assets calculates the prorate date when you initially enter an asset. The prorate date is based on the date placed in service and the asset prorate convention. For example, if you use the half-year prorate convention, the prorate date of all assets using that convention is simply the mid-point of your fiscal year. So assets acquired in the same fiscal year take the same amount (half a year's worth) of depreciation in the first year. If however, you use the following month prorate convention, the prorate date is the beginning of the month following the month placed in service, so the amount of depreciation taken for assets acquired in the same fiscal year varies according to the month they were placed in service.

Your reporting authority's depreciation regulations determine the amount of depreciation to take in the asset's first year of life. For example, some governments require that you prorate depreciation according to the number of months you hold an asset in its first fiscal year of life. In this case, your prorate convention has twelve rate periods--one for each month of the year. Other reporting authorities require that you prorate depreciation according to the number of days that you hold an asset in its first year of life. This means that the fiscal year depreciation amount would vary depending on the day you added the asset. Thus, your prorate convention contains 365 prorate periods--one for each day of the year.

Depreciation Rate

Calculation Basis

Oracle Assets calculates depreciation using either the recoverable cost or the recoverable net book value as a basis. If the depreciation method uses the asset cost, Oracle Assets calculates the fiscal year depreciation by multiplying the recoverable cost by the rate.

If the depreciation method uses the asset net book value, Oracle Assets calculates the fiscal year depreciation by multiplying the recoverable net book value as of the beginning of the fiscal year, or after the latest amortized adjustment or revaluation, by the rate.

Determining the Prorate Period

Oracle Assets uses the prorate date to choose a prorate period from the prorate calendar.

For life-based methods, the prorate period and asset age then determine which rate Oracle Assets selects from the rate table. The depreciation program calculates asset age from the date placed in service as the number of fiscal years that you have held the asset. If two assets are placed in service at different times, but have the same depreciation method and life, Oracle Assets uses the same rate table, but may choose a different rate from a different column and row in the table.

Flat-rate methods use a fixed rate and do not use a rate table.

Determining the Depreciation Rate

For life-based depreciation methods, Oracle Assets uses the depreciation method and life to determine which rate table to use. Then, it uses the prorate period and year of life to determine which of the rates in the table to use. Note that the life of an asset has more fiscal years than its asset calendar life if it is placed in service during a fiscal year.

Flat-rate depreciation methods determine the depreciation rate using fixed rates, including the basic rate, adjusting rate, and bonus rate.

Calculate Annual Depreciation

Calculated and table-based methods calculate annual depreciation by multiplying the depreciation rate by the recoverable cost or net book value as of the beginning of the fiscal year.

Flat-rate methods calculate annual depreciation as the depreciation rate multiplied by the recoverable cost or net book value, multiplied by the fraction of year the asset was held.

Allocate Annual Depreciation Across Periods

After calculating the annual depreciation amount, Oracle Assets uses your depreciation calendar, the divide depreciation flag, and the depreciate when placed in service flag to determine how much of the fiscal year depreciation to allocate to the period for which you ran depreciation.

If you choose to allocate depreciation evenly to each of your accounting periods, Oracle Assets divides the annual depreciation by the number of depreciation periods in your fiscal year to get the depreciation per period. If, however, you choose to allocate it according to the number of days in each period, Oracle Assets divides the annual depreciation by the number of days the asset depreciates in the fiscal year and multiplies the result by the number of days in the appropriate accounting period.

Spreading Depreciation Across Expense Accounts

Finally, Oracle Assets allocates the periodic depreciation to the assignments to which you have assigned the asset. Oracle Assets does this according to the fraction of the asset units that is assigned to each depreciation expense account in the Assignments window.