Hi Bob, 

   Thanks for your insight.  Here is another approach we are considering:

- create a new company by copying from another company

. extract the assets from the source company into a csv file

. make the changes needed to the assets in the csv file

, iimport these assets into the new company

. run the depreciation on these assets

We have been  canvassing the Accounting managers to ask about the impact to their accounting cycle if we use this approach.  Barring anything that they come up with, is there any other issues that could create problems by using this approach? 

Thank you for your insight. 

Hi, Genevieve,

Let me address your questions in the order you presented them.

  o   . . . What are the capabilities for updating asset records?  

A custom import can be used to update general information fields, but only general information fields.  Insofar as the book information fields, a bulk edit can be applied to a group of assets, but is limited to only 2 fields, the depreciation method and estimated life.  If you must change other fields, the editing is performed on an asset by asset basis.

  o   . . . the Class field in the asset record drives the useful life.  Is that a configuration that can be overridden or is it hard-coded logic within the application? 

Regardless of the value entered into the class field, it does not drive the estimated life on the asset record.  Estimated life is entered by you the user.  For the tax books, the recovery period should comport to applicable tax code regulations.  If you exceed certain thresholds programmed into the software, you will see a warning message pop up.  For GAAP, the estimated life is again a value that you the user enters and that value should be in accordance with company policy, which is normally based on what is reasonable and consistent with the depreciation of like assets.

  o   if we change the fair value and useful life (I think the new depreciation method will be Straight Line), will Sage recalculate the depreciation?

If any critical field is changed, it will affect the depreciation calculated on the asset.  The important question for you to answer is:  when do you want to make the change effective?  If you make it effective with the current through date, then the accumulated depreciation calculated to date will be saved to the asset record and the depreciation calculated going forward will be different from the way it was done in the past.  If you make the change effective from the placed-in-service date, then all accumulated depreciation will be erased.  When you depreciate the asset anew, you will get the correct depreciation, based on the new critical field value or values, calculated from the start of its life.

With 5500 assets, you are clearly facing a big project.  Consider using the help of one of our consultants from the Sage Expert Services team.  You can reach a consultant through your Sage Account Rep.  The toll free number is 1-800-368-2405.

HI Bob, 

   Thank you so much for your prompt reponse!  I will run this by my client, and also try it in a test environment. 

If I were in your shoes, I would manage the process a little more like your second approach.  However, I would tweak some of the steps you mentioned to follow a process more like this:

1. I would create a new company, but I don't see any reason to copy the company or to perform an extract.
2. I would perform a custom export to capture all of the assets from the original company, with the fields that I want to use, into a spreadsheet (which will be an ASCII csv file).  If you need more than one book, and I presume you do, this will need to be done iteratively to capture all of the books you need.  Then using a copy and paste, create a master spreadsheet with all the information and all the books. 
3. Edit the master spreadsheet as necessary. 
4. Use the master spreadsheet to perform the custom import into the new company I created initially.

The last task you wrote was "run the depreciation on these assets."  Considering this statement and what you wrote in your first post implies that you want to change some of your critical fields and calculate depreciation anew on all of your assets.  And in some situations, that may work for you.  But your figures may not square with previous tax returns you have filed or with previous postings to your general ledger.

If that is a factor for you, here's what you need to do.  When you perform your custom export, include fields like the current through date, current YTD, and current accum.  Change the headers in these columns to indicate Beg through date, Beg YTD, and Beg Accum.  When you do the import, you will need to map those columns for each book to your beginning fields.

If you decide to use the beginning fields as I just explained above, there is one more important issue that you need to be aware of.  As a result of editing your critical fields, you may find yourself with under-depreciated assets if you are using a straight-line method, and your earlier post already alluded to that method.  How do you want to handle your under-depreciated assets?  There are several options.

Adjustment options are found on the Book Overrides tab in the New Company, or Edit Company, dialog window.  Or, you may just change the depreciation method to RV which is a solution that will work nicely for GAAP.

Hi Bob, 

  I am in the process of creating a new company in a test instance of Sage to test the solution suggested about.  When creating the new company, I go to the 'Copy Setup' option to use whatever parameters would be helpful from the company we are testing.  This company is '603 TEST Maysville'.   

  When I go to select the Maysville company to copy its setup, this company does not appear in the list of available companies to copy from.  A snapshot is included her to show the available company  list in these places:

- Open Company from the Main Menu

- Copy Company --> Copy Settings

Why would Maysville not be available in Copy Settings?  

Also, on a high level, what information does Copy Settings bring in to the new company? 

Please let me know if you need more information, and thanks for any help you can give. 

By any chance is the Maysville a Gov/NP or Canadian company type?

~Delray

From what you provided, I don't see the Maysville company either.  Is it located on the BESTTEST database file?  Or, is it located on another database, the <Default> perhaps?