Money and the account

What the shop owns

Menu: Money → Assets · Setup → Asset categories · Reporting → Reports → Books Who: the owner, and anybody the owner gives May read the books to. Only the owner adds or edits an asset category.

An oven, a chiller, the counters, the computer in the back office, the van. None of these is stock: you do not sell them and nobody counts them on a shelf. They are things the shop keeps, and each one loses a little of its value every month it is used. The asset register is where you list them, so the balance sheet shows what they are still worth and the profit and loss shows what wearing them out cost you.

It is part of the books, so you need The books in your package and a start date set (see The books chapter).

Registering something

Money → Assets → Register an asset. You give it:

a category — furniture, computers, vehicles, shop fittings, and so on. The category fills in how it usually wears out; you can change it for this one;
a name, and a serial number if it has one;
where it stands — a branch, or head office;
the day it arrived and what it cost, tax included. Sales tax paid on something you keep is part of its cost and is never claimed back;
what it will fetch at the end — leave it blank if the answer is nothing;
how it wears out: straight line (the same amount every month for a number of months) or reducing balance (a share of what is left each year);
how it was paid for.

How it was paid for

This depends on the date:

Before your books began. Sellify brings it in on the start date at what it was still worth, and writes the months before as already charged. You are not asked how it was paid for — it was not paid for in these books.
Since your books began. Say which pile the money came out of — the till, petty cash or the bank — or that it went on a supplier's account.

Cash out of the till or petty cash is recorded on the day it leaves. Something paid by bank can be dated back.

On a supplier's account puts it on that supplier's khata like a delivery. Their payment terms decide when it is due, and you pay it off from Inventory → Payables the same way you pay for goods: a payment goes against the oldest bill first, whether that bill is a delivery or an asset. Head office cannot buy on account — a supplier's account is kept by branch.

Depreciation posts itself

You do not type depreciation. Every night Sellify charges each month that has finished: one entry per month, dated the last day of the month, with a line per category per branch. Closing a month charges it first too, so a filed month always has its depreciation in it.

Two rules decide the figure:

A full month in the month it arrived, and nothing in the month it leaves. There is no counting of days.
Straight line ends exactly at what it will fetch at the end. The last month takes whatever rounding is left over.

Open an asset to see its schedule: every month, what it was charged and what it was worth after. Months already charged say Charged. Months still to come say Projected — that is when it will be written off if nothing changes.

After it arrives

Open the asset and use the buttons at the bottom.

Change the estimate

When it will last longer or shorter than you thought, or will fetch more or less at the end. Months already charged stay exactly as they were. What it is still worth is spread over what is left, starting from the first month nobody has charged. A straight-line life is the whole life counted from the day it arrived, so "it will last seven years, not five" is typed as 84 months. You have to say why.

What it cost and the day it arrived cannot be changed here.

Move

Moves it to another branch or to head office, today. What it cost and everything charged so far move with it. The months it was charged at the old branch stay there, because that is where it was being used.

Sell or scrap

Sold — say what it fetched and where the money went: the bank or petty cash. It cannot go into the till, because the till is counted against sales.
Scrapped — it fetched nothing.

Depreciation is charged up to the month it goes and not into that month. The difference between what it fetched and what it was still worth is the gain or loss, shown on the asset and on the income statement.

Take the disposal back

If a sale or a scrapping was recorded by mistake, Take the disposal back reverses it today, with a reason. Money that went into petty cash comes back out of it. The depreciation charged up to the disposal stays, because the asset really was in use all that time. Nothing is deleted.

Every change, move, disposal and undo is kept on the asset's History: who, when and why.

Asset categories

Setup → Asset categories. Every company starts with a list — furniture, computers, vehicles, leasehold improvements, and kitchen equipment or shop fittings for your trade. Each category has three accounts of its own on the chart:

what the things cost;
the depreciation charged so far;
the monthly depreciation charge.

A new category creates its three accounts for you. Only the owner can add or change a category. Its life and rate are only what a new asset is offered — changing them moves nothing already registered. A category with assets on it can be hidden but not deleted.

The reports

Under Reporting → Reports → Books:

Fixed asset register — every asset still owned on a day, with what it cost, what has been charged and what it is worth. The page checks itself against the balance sheet and shows any difference.
Depreciation schedule — each asset, month by month, charged and projected.
Asset disposals — what left, when, for how much, and the gain or loss.

The cash flow statement shows buying an asset as money spent on investing and selling one as money coming back in. Depreciation does not appear there at all, because it moves no cash.

What it does not do yet

A wrong cost cannot be corrected on the asset. Until that exists, scrap it with a reason and register it again.
No separate tax depreciation, revaluation or leases.
Nothing about assets is on the till or works offline.