Melissa, you can change the life of an asset, from 7 to 15, as you indicated, and capture the accumulated depreciation up to the date of the change.

To simulate your example, create a $15,000 test asset with a 7-year life, place it in service at the beginning of 2013, and depreciate it through the end of 2017.  Note the accumulated depreciation of $10,714.30:

Next, edit the Estimate Life critical field in the Internal book, changing the value from 7 to 15.  When you make a change like this, you will see a warning followed by a dialog window to mark the effective date of the change.  Elect to make the change effective with the Current Thru Date.  And upon making this change, the Beginning fields (which are used to record prior depreciation on an asset) are automatically filled.  Please note that the Beginning Accum field will capture the accumulated depreciation.  In this case, that figure is $10,714.30.

Is there a way for you to see the change in the way depreciation is calculated both before and after the change?  Yes, the Quick Projection report is one tool you could use.  For example, before making a change to the life, run the Quick Projection report and export it to a file where you can later refer to it.

And after you make a change to the life of the asset, you could then run the Quick Projection report and review the projected depreciation following your change.    Note the accumulated depreciation of $10,714.30 in the first row of this matrix.  Assuming no Period Close Date, this report will start with the Beginning Date if one is found on the asset record. 

You may notice, however, that the projection does not really extend out to the 15^th year of the life of the asset.  That’s because when you make a change, like what you are proposing to do, i.e., changing the life from 7 to 15 years, you can put the asset into a state of being over-depreciated. 

You did not say in your post what depreciation method you are using, but I will assume it is a straight line method.  After all, that’s what the majority of our clients use for financial reporting.  And if so, the asset is rendered over-depreciated after you change its life, extending it to 15 years.  If nothing else is done to an over-depreciated asset, it will simply depreciate early.

 If it is important to you, however, that the asset depreciates “on time,” and not early, then you will need to change the depreciation method to RV.  This will “stretch out” the remaining value over its remaining life.

While in the Asset's Detail view or when an asset is select in the List View - you will find the Quick Projection under the Depreciation menu.

Hi, Bob Mc, I am need to extend the useful life of an asset.  How do you create the Quick Projection Report?

RV is not straight line - it is Remaining value over Remaining life. 

I just did a quick hand calculation, then I entered the asset into the program - and they match perfectly.

40 years * 12 months = 480 months total life
480 - 30 months (the time between PIS date and Beginning date) = 450 which is 37 year 6 months remaining life

9,955,198.9 the NBV as of the Begging date / 450 = 22,122.66 which is exactly what the program gave me when I entered the asset.

What was your result?

~Delray

I have a similar situation as the one in the original post.  I have an asset where I need to change the use ful life from 30 years to 40 years.  This asset was placed in-service on 6/1/2017, and we are depreciating it using the straight-line method. 

The current accumulated depreciation balance is $905,018.08 as of 11/30/19.  The cost of the asset is 10,860,216.98, and the resulting net book value (NBV) is 9,955,198.90.  We have not run December 2019 depreciation yet.  I want to change the useful life to 37 years and 6 months, beginning 12/1/2019, and run depreciation over the $9,955,198.90 NBV. 

I created a test database and used the RV depreciation method suggested by Bob Mc in the original post (above).  The resulting depreciation numbers were not correct using the RV method.  I want to depreciate the $9,955,198.90 NBV over 37 years and 6 months, using the straight-line depreciation method.  How do I get this to work in Sage Fixed Assets?  (P.S. I have not run December 2019 depreciation yet.)

Hi again, Dfranklin!

I am also going to jump into the discussion and reinforce the comments from Delray already posted above.

Originally, you put the asset into service in June 2017, at a cost 0f $10.8M.  With a 30-year life, this asset was initially projected to depreciate until 2047.  But as of the end of Nov 2019, you've decided you would like to extend the life to 37 years and 6 months. 

I built an asset to simulate what you've done and are trying to do going forward, and I want to share these results with you.

When you change the estimated life from 30 to "3706" (and that's the way you would enter the value), and you elect to make the change effective from the current through date of 11/2019, you will see the figure of $905K in the Beginning Accum field.  And that figure is entered automatically when you make the change.  You will recognize that figure, of course, because that's the current accum on the asset as of Nov 2019.  And furthermore, as a result of the change, the asset will now depreciate until the end of 2054.

Projecting the depreciation, here's what you will see in the final years of its life if you stick with the straight-line method:  (Sorry, you may need to increase your zoom factor in order to read these numbers clearly.)

And here are the same projections if you change the depreciation method to RV:

Note that with the straight-line method, the amount of depreciation per year will be $289.6K.  And with the RV method, the amount per year will be a little different, $284.4K.  But with either scenario, you still will fully depreciate the $10.8M asset by the end of 2054.