Company Asset Management

For small and large businesses to thrive, they must have inventory. Also, they need long-term investment that is used to produce income. Computers, tools of the trade, vehicles, and buildings are the best examples of fixed assets. In a nutshell, a fixed asset is anything that a company buys intending to use for more than one year. The challenge that most companies encounter is in deciding what to do when it is time to get rid of assets.

Reasons a Company Might Need to Get Rid of Assets

There are times when assets might lose their original form and cannot be repaired. When this happens, just like scrap metal, they must be disposed of. One of the reasons why you might need to dispose of the assets is because the cost of continually repairing the assets might not be good for the financial health of a business. Also, some assets become outdated as time goes by or the business changes its operation. Still, your company might need to dispose of assets when it has identified more efficient ones.

Depreciating Your Assets 

Through depreciation of a given asset, a business can identify the cost of the property over its expected lifespan. If you are buying a machine that you would like to use for the next ten years, you don’t get it for the cost of the first year and give the next nine years blind eyes. Depreciation is a significant aspect since it adds to the overall expenses of a business; hence, its taxable income within a given financial period. When depreciation occurs, the company will not make as much money as it deserves. Therefore, when getting an asset, make sure to have in mind the expected useful lifespan so that you don’t put money where it doesn’t deserve to be.

To find out the depreciation rate of an asset, companies must understand the right methods to use for different properties. Note that different properties have unique formulas for calculating the depreciation on furniture and fixture. Some of the methods include declining balance, straight-line depreciation, and double-declining balance. If the right technique is applied to calculate the depreciation of an asset, the company will know whether it is worth buying.

Even if an asset has a high depreciation rate, it could be maintained and serviced to extend its lifespan. However, the cost of doing that should also be considered if the company has to make money from the asset. In the current time, companies are looking for better solutions so that they don’t spend a lot of money buying and maintaining assets. Therefore, they opt for automated systems and software that are known to depreciate assets automatically and then transmit maintenance alert. That way, the business can know when their assets need to be maintained and fixed so that they hit the targeted useful lifespan.

How to Do Asset Disposal

Some systems are created to take you through the asset disposal process. Some of them also handle part of the process; but when an asset costs a lot of money to fix, then disposing of it becomes inevitable. You should note that when you remove a capital asset from the company, you must inform the right body. This is essential since the gains brought in by long-term assets are usually taxed at the lowest rate compared to other forms of income. Therefore, if you remove a capital asset and fail to inform the tax body, it means a huge loss for the company.

If you don’t dispose of your asset right, you might still incur some expenses related to whether you gained or lost from the process, the duration over which you owned the asset, your income, and the type of asset that you have disposed of. The best ways to dispose of assets include sale, abandonment, repossession and foreclosure, donation, and involuntary conversion.

After you have acquired a newer model, you can sell the current asset to another company. Alternatively, you can choose to recycle for money. Always think first and weigh the consequences of a method that you consider using to rid an asset.