Fixed assets
Capital equipment on the books: bought, built, or capitalized from stock, then depreciated and retired.
A fixed asset is a piece of capital equipment you capitalize and depreciate rather than expense: a press, a CNC, a forklift, or a unit you built to rent out. It's an accounting record of value over time, distinct from the that represents the same machine on the floor. Every asset belongs to an , which supplies the general-ledger accounts it posts to.
Lifecycle
Acquiring
An asset comes onto the books four ways. Registering and buying start from a Draft asset you created; building and capitalizing create the asset for you.
- Register one you already own: supply its acquisition cost and depreciation start date, and it moves to Active. No cash moves; the entry offsets equity, since you're recording something you already have.
- Buy one through purchasing: a line of type Fixed Asset that, when the receipt posts, debits the asset account, adds the cost to the asset, and flips it to Active. A purchase invoice with no receipt does the same. The asset page's "Purchase" action drafts the purchase order for you, and it is offered while the asset is Draft.
- Build one on a job: set the job's "Complete To" to "Fixed Asset Class" and choose the class. When the job completes, each finished unit becomes its own asset priced at the cost it absorbed, and the unit never enters stock. This is .
- Capitalize a unit already in stock: on the item's inventory page, the storage-unit row action "Capitalize as Fixed Asset" moves one unit out of stock at its carrying cost and creates the asset, or fills a Draft one, as Active. The form shows that cost before you confirm. The serial number travels with it. A unit inventory carries at no cost, such as one a job completed with no production or material recorded, or one issued into stock at no cost, takes the Acquisition Cost you enter instead. You also choose the Offset Account the value was spent from (Retained Earnings by default). Entering a cost takes permission to update accounting. To carry the unit at that cost in inventory first, use Recost on its storage-unit row.
A job that builds assets has two rules
A job that completes to a fixed asset class needs a serialized item, so every finished unit maps to one numbered asset that the fleet can rent, return and capitalize. And it cannot be linked to a sales order line, because that job is a sale. Carbon refuses the job when you save it, and again at release.
The purchase-receipt path activates the asset and posts its acquisition entry. Cost is added cumulatively, so an asset can accrue value across several receipts. Before the company has set up accounting, the acquisition journal is Provisional, but the asset still takes its cost and its status.
Fleet register
Accounting → Fixed Assets → Fleet lists every asset tied to an item, whether built on a job or capitalized from stock, with a status Carbon derives from the asset rather than stores:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| "Available" | On the books, in service, and free to rent |
| "Reserved" | Named on a draft or undelivered line of a rental agreement |
| "On Rent" | Delivered to a customer on an active rental agreement |
| "In Maintenance" | Taken out of service |
| "Sold" | Disposed by sale or scrapping, including a rental unit treated as a sale |
| "Returned to Stock" | Returned to inventory |
Two actions manage whether a unit is without touching its accounting. "Take Out of Service" records a reason and date, keeps the asset depreciating, and flips the register to In Maintenance; "Return to Service" clears it. Both live on the asset page and in the register's row menu. A unit on rent is taken out of service from its rental agreement instead: "Return" it with "Take out of service" ticked.
An Available unit's row menu also offers "Rent", which starts a new rental agreement with that unit on it.
A unit can also go back to stock. "Return to Inventory" on an Active or Fully Depreciated asset with an item puts the same serial back on the shelf at , and marks the asset Disposed.
The unit keeps that value. Under FIFO or LIFO costing, selling, issuing, or adjusting out that serial later relieves it at its net book value, not at the cost of the oldest stock. Return it to service first, and return it from its rental agreement if it is reserved or on rent: Carbon refuses either case.
The seeded class is the default target for these units, and "Build for Fleet" on the register opens a new job with that class already set as its Complete To target.
Adjusting cost
An Active or Fully Depreciated asset that came onto the books for less than it cost, such as a unit a job built with no labor or material recorded, takes the rest through "Adjust Cost" in the asset's menu. Enter the increase and the Offset Account it was spent from: Retained Earnings (the default) for an earlier year, or this year's labor or material expense account. Carbon debits the class's asset account, credits the offset account, raises the acquisition cost and records a Cost Adjustment transfer on the asset. A Fully Depreciated asset with value above its residual again returns to Active. Cost can only be raised here, and adjusting it takes permission to update accounting.
If depreciation already ran at the old cost, the next run catches up a straight-line asset: its first month carries the depreciation the earlier months missed, so the asset still finishes on its original schedule. Declining balance and MACRS correct themselves, since both depreciate what is left over the life that is left; units of production does not catch up.
Depreciating
runs as a monthly batch you trigger. There's no background poster. You create a run for a period, Carbon pulls every Active asset and computes each charge, you review it as a draft, then post: debit depreciation expense, credit accumulated depreciation. An asset under construction is not Active, so it is skipped until it is capitalized; a fleet unit out of service is still Active, so it keeps depreciating. Carbon keeps a separate tax book too, including , when tax depreciation is enabled. When an asset's net book value reaches its residual, posting flips it to Fully Depreciated.
Book depreciation follows the asset's method: , , or units of production.
Selling vs. disposing
An Active or Fully Depreciated asset leaves the books two different ways:
| Sell | Dispose | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | A sales action | An accounting action |
| What happens | Drafts a sales order for the asset at its net book value | Posts a write-off: clears accumulated depreciation, removes the asset at cost |
| Asset status | Unchanged (Active or Fully Depreciated) until its shipment posts, then Disposed | Disposed |
| Money | Collected through the invoice, like any sale | Remaining book value booked as a loss |
Selling and disposing are not two names for one thing. Selling hands the asset to the normal quote-to-cash flow at book value; the asset leaves the books when its shipment posts, and the invoice then books the gain or loss against net book value. Disposing retires it directly: from the asset page is scrapping at a loss. A fleet unit has a third exit, Return to Inventory, described above.
A fixed asset is not the same record as a work center. The machine you schedule production on and the machine you depreciate are tracked separately, but they can point at each other: an asset's "Work Center" field records which work center it serves, and that work center's page shows a read-only Capital Cost panel with its assets, their net book value, and the monthly straight-line depreciation they carry. Machine rates are still typed by hand.
Related
The narrative: putting a machine on the books and writing it down.
Where an asset's acquisition, depreciation, and disposal entries land.
The job whose Complete To target turns finished units into assets.
The same machine as a production resource, with the capital cost its assets carry.