Representing Assets in the Asset Accounting and in the General Ledger Accounting

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Identify the connection between Asset Accounting and General Ledger Accounting
  • Enter an integrated asset invoice in the accounting system
  • Verify financial statements from an asset accountant point of view
  • Analyze the Asset History Sheet
  • Valuate assets using different deprecation rules

Asset Accounting and General Ledger Accounting

Business Scenario

Kevin understood that assets have a life cycle and are structured based on asset classes. He wants to check if the acquisition value of the excavator is represented in the balance sheet on the assets side.

Kevin has an invoice for the excavator. Before he posts the invoice in the system, he wants to know more about the data flow between the excavator asset and its posting to the general ledger. He learns how this value transitions from Asset Accounting to General Ledger Accounting in this video:

Integrated Asset Acquisition

Where does the Capitalized-on Date come from? This date specifies the point in time from which the excavator officially belongs to the company’s asset inventory.

In the case of an acquisition, the capitalization date can be either entered manually in the master record, if this is already known, or if the capitalization date is not defined, the system automatically creates a capitalization date as follows:

  • It proposes the earlier date from the posting date and document date, provided that these dates are in the same fiscal year as the asset value date.
  • If these are not in the same fiscal year, the system proposes the posting date.

From an Asset Accounting point of view, the asset value date is the value date of an asset transaction.

Note

The posting date and asset value date must always be in the same fiscal year.

Next, Kevin wants to enter the excavator invoice into the system.

Post an Integrated Asset Acquisition and Analyze the Asset Value

Financial Statements

Business Scenario

The excavator is activated in the Asset Accounting and its acquisition value is recorded in the General Ledger Accounting. Kevin has already learned that the asset balance sheet account is also posted when the excavator is activated. To make sure that his balance sheet is correct, Kevin needs to understand the connection between the excavator and its representation in the balance sheet under the "technical assets and machines" node.

Watch the video to see how an asset is represented in the balance sheet.

Analyze the Asset in the Asset Balance Report

Analyze the Asset in the Balance Sheet

Asset History Sheet

Business Scenario

Kevin was approached by his manager. He must present possible evaluations of fixed assets at the next meeting.

The asset history sheet must also be generated. Kevin asks himself: Is there a way to retrace the most important life cycle events of our excavator for a particular fiscal year? How can I analyze every single asset that my company has? There are some great Asset Accounting tools that could help Kevin to answer these questions.

Kevin wants to learn how the various asset transactions (acquisition, retirement, depreciation of an asset) affect the asset history sheet. Watch the video to learn more.

Kevin’s manager wants to know which assets belong to the company’s asset inventory and also which assets were bought or sold during the current fiscal year. Hence, Kevin wants to see which analysis options for the fixed assets and therefore for the excavator are available in the system. Find out more by watching the videos.

Analyze the Asset in the Asset History Sheet

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