Calculate Asset Depreciation and Book Value

See how a purchase price, a useful life and a salvage value become a current book value for every asset — and a replacement budget for the whole fleet.

English video2:05Capital Overview

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What this guide covers

What an asset cost is not what it is worth. This guide follows a single asset from the figures on its record — original cost, purchase date, useful life and salvage value — to the number that answers the question a finance team actually asks: what is this worth today?

The video works through straight-line depreciation, which spreads the purchase price less the salvage value evenly across the useful life you enter, and shows the monthly figure, the accumulated total and the current book value that follow from it. A4B also supports declining balance, which the video does not demonstrate. Either way the arithmetic is managerial and meant for planning replacements — it is not tax accounting.

The last part of the guide zooms out to Capital Overview, which adds up every asset that has depreciation configured: total fleet book value, the value the fleet loses each month, the assets furthest through their depreciation, and the replacement budget for the coming twelve months. Deleted assets stay out of those totals while their history remains available.

What you need

  • An A4B account with at least one Workspace
  • Organization admin access — financial fields and Capital Overview are admin-only
  • One or more assets already recorded in A4B
  • The purchase price, purchase date, useful life and salvage value for those assets
See how Capital Overview works

Related guides

Ready to try this with your own assets?