Fixed asset register template (free Excel download)

What this fixed asset register template does

A fixed asset register is the detailed record of every item of property, plant and equipment a business owns: what it is, where it is, what it cost, how it is depreciated and what it is worth in the books today. This free Excel template calculates straight-line and reducing-balance depreciation, handles disposals, and produces a cost and net book value roll-forward that ties to your general ledger.

The register is the sub-ledger behind the fixed asset accounts. Your ledger holds one balance for cost and one for accumulated depreciation per category; the register explains those balances asset by asset. When the two agree, the balance sheet figure is supported. When they do not, something has been capitalised, disposed of or depreciated in one place and not the other.

What is inside the workbook

The workbook has six sheets. Inputs are entered once, on the Register and Settings sheets; everything else is calculated.

• How to use: steps, the depreciation convention and the limitations.
• Settings: company, currency, the first financial year of the schedule, the reporting year, asset categories and two set-up checks.
• Register: one row per asset with ID, description, category, location, acquisition date, cost, residual value, useful life, method, reducing-balance rate, disposal date and proceeds, followed by 12 calculated columns for the reporting year.
• Depreciation schedule: months in service and the depreciation charge for each asset in each of 12 financial years.
• Roll-forward: opening cost, additions, disposals and closing cost; opening accumulated depreciation, charge, disposals and closing accumulated depreciation; opening and closing NBV and gain or loss, by category, with six tie-out checks.
• Method comparison: one asset depreciated by both methods side by side, with the rate that reaches the residual value exactly at the end of its life.

The depreciation convention

Under IAS 16, depreciation starts when an asset is available for use and stops at the earlier of the date it is classified as held for sale under IFRS 5 and the date it is derecognised, but the standard leaves the monthly convention to your accounting policy. The template charges a full month in the month of acquisition and nothing in the month of disposal. It is simple, common and easy to audit; whatever convention you choose, state it in your policies and apply it consistently.

Straight line (SL) charges (cost - residual value) / (useful life x 12) for each month in service. Reducing balance (RB) charges the net book value at the start of each financial year multiplied by the annual rate, pro-rated for the months in service. In the financial year in which the useful life ends, the charge takes the net book value down to exactly the residual value, so rounding never leaves a few cents on the register. No charge ever takes an asset below its residual value.

How to fill it in, step by step

Start with the assets you already own, then keep the register current as assets are bought and sold. The register is a history, not a list of what is left, so disposed assets stay on it.

• On Settings, enter the first financial year the schedule should cover, on or before the oldest acquisition, and the reporting year you want to see.
• List your categories; they should match the fixed asset accounts in your chart of accounts.
• Enter each asset with its acquisition date and full cost, including delivery, installation and other costs needed to bring it into use.
• Enter the residual value and useful life you expect, and choose SL or RB; for RB, enter the annual rate.
• When an asset is sold or scrapped, enter the disposal date and the proceeds, or 0 if it was scrapped.
• On Roll-forward, enter the closing cost and accumulated depreciation from your general ledger and check that every test reads OK.
• Change the reporting year on Settings to see any other year; the whole register recalculates.

The worked example: nine assets, one reporting year

The example is a fictional trading company with nine assets and a calendar financial year, reporting on 2026 in EUR. An office fit-out bought on 1 April 2022 for 60,000 over 10 years by straight line was charged 4,500 for nine months of 2022 and 6,000 a year since, so it opens 2026 with accumulated depreciation of 22,500 and closes it with a net book value of 31,500.

A delivery van bought on 15 July 2023 for 38,000, with a residual value of 6,000, is depreciated at 30 percent reducing balance. The charges are 5,700 for six months of 2023, then 9,690, 6,783 and 4,748.10 in 2026, leaving a net book value of 11,078.90. In 2028, the year its five-year life ends, the charge of 1,755.23 takes it to exactly 6,000.

Two assets were added in 2026: office furniture of 8,400 from March, charged 833.33 for ten months, and a file server of 9,600 from October, charged 960 at 40 percent reducing balance for three months. A set of laptops bought in 2021 is fully depreciated and still in use, and showroom units sold in 2025 no longer appear in the 2026 figures.

Disposals and the gain or loss

A forklift truck bought for 22,000 in January 2022 and depreciated at 25 percent reducing balance was sold on 20 June 2026 for 9,500. It opened 2026 with a net book value of 6,960.94. Depreciation for January to May, five months, is 725.10, so the net book value on disposal is 6,235.84 and the gain on disposal is 9,500 - 6,235.84 = 3,264.16.

The disposal removes both the cost and the accumulated depreciation of the asset from the books. Under IAS 16 the gain or loss is the difference between the net disposal proceeds and the carrying amount, and it is recognised in profit or loss; gains are not classified as revenue.

• Depreciation to the disposal date: Dr Depreciation expense 725.10 / Cr Accumulated depreciation 725.10
• Disposal: Dr Bank 9,500.00 / Dr Accumulated depreciation 15,764.16 / Cr Plant and machinery at cost 22,000.00 / Cr Gain on disposal 3,264.16
• Check: debits 9,500.00 + 15,764.16 = 25,264.16 = credits 22,000.00 + 3,264.16

The roll-forward and how it ties

The roll-forward is the reconciliation IAS 16 paragraph 73(e) asks entities to disclose for each class of property, plant and equipment: carrying amount at the start, additions, disposals, depreciation and other movements, and carrying amount at the end. For the example, cost moves from 166,000 plus additions of 18,000 less disposals of 22,000 to 162,000. Accumulated depreciation moves from 80,378.73 plus the charge of 20,266.53 less 15,764.16 on the disposal to 84,881.10.

Net book value therefore moves from 85,621.27 plus additions of 18,000, less depreciation of 20,266.53, less the 6,235.84 net book value of the disposal, to 77,118.90, and that is the figure that must appear on the balance sheet. The Roll-forward sheet checks that every asset belongs to a listed category, that the charge equals the schedule for the year, that the NBV movement adds up, and that closing cost and accumulated depreciation agree with the amounts you enter from the ledger. Only when all six checks pass does it show ALL TIED.

Every formula in the workbook was recalculated by two independent spreadsheet engines and compared with a separate month-by-month model of the same convention, for every asset and every year of the schedule. The tests also switched the reporting year to 2025 and confirmed that the register still ties, and that an uncategorised asset or a wrong ledger balance is flagged.

Straight line or reducing balance?

IAS 16 asks for the method that reflects the pattern in which the asset's future economic benefits are expected to be consumed, and the method, useful life and residual value must be reviewed at least at each financial year end. A change is a change in accounting estimate under IAS 8 and is applied prospectively. The Method comparison sheet shows the difference on a 50,000 asset with a 5,000 residual value and a five-year life.

Straight line charges 9,000 every year. Reducing balance at 36.9 percent, the rate that reaches the residual value at the end of five years once rounded to one decimal place (the final year absorbs the rounding), charges 18,450, 11,641.95, 7,346.07, 4,635.37 and 2,926.61. Both total 45,000; reducing balance simply moves the expense forward, which suits vehicles and technology that lose value fastest when new. Tax depreciation, such as capital allowances in the UK or capital cost allowance in Canada, follows its own rules and should be tracked separately from book depreciation.

Common mistakes in fixed asset registers

Registers go wrong gradually, usually because the ledger and the register are updated by different people at different times. These are the problems auditors find most often.

A physical verification once a year, walking the premises with the register filtered by location, is the simplest way to keep it honest. Tag each asset with its register ID, record missing items as disposals once the loss is confirmed, and add anything found that the register does not know about. Record the verification date and the person who performed it, because auditors will ask for both.

• Additions capitalised in the ledger but never added to the register, or the reverse.
• Disposed or scrapped assets still on the register and still being depreciated.
• Repairs and maintenance capitalised, or genuine improvements expensed.
• Depreciation starting on the invoice date instead of when the asset was available for use.
• Useful lives and residual values never reviewed, leaving large fully depreciated assets still in use.
• No asset tags or locations, so a physical verification cannot match assets to the register.
• Accumulated depreciation that no longer agrees with the ledger, with the difference carried forward unexplained.

Doing this in Skyline Nexus ERP

Skyline Nexus ERP has an Asset Management module with an asset register (All Assets, Import Assets, Categories, Movements, Allocations and Components) and a lifecycle menu for Depreciation, Revaluation, Impairment, Disposal and CIP. The Depreciation screen offers Straight Line, Declining Balance, Sum of Years Digits and Units of Production. Depreciation runs monthly on a schedule, and it posts to the general ledger when Auto-post Depreciation Entries is switched on in the Fiscal Authority settings; disposals post when Auto-post Asset Disposal Entries is on.

The ledger accounts that asset transactions use are set under Asset and Depreciation Accounts in the Fiscal Authority settings, and acquisitions, depreciation, disposals with their gain or loss, revaluations, impairments and CIP capitalisation each have posting rules. A register kept in this template can be moved across with Import Assets, after which the template's roll-forward becomes a useful check on your opening position.