The cleanest way of documenting it I suppose may depend on how the majority items are treated. If usually all of a lot is disposed of at the same time, keeping the lot grouping may reduce the bookkeeping effort. If items are mostly disposed of at different times or otherwise modified to become no-identical during their life, starting as individual items maybe more efficient.
In @Inline case, if typically a computer lot all goes to one customer with limited knowledge of individual items till all are returned at the end of the lease, keeping the grouping maybe most efficient. If individual computers in a lot often go to different customers, or orders to one customer maybe supplied from different lots, splitting the lots to individual computers is going to be cleaner.
It may also depend on how computer assets are normally tracked in an organization. Attaching other documentation to individual asset entries maybe useful.
As Manager does not support disposal of part of an asset, I assume to actually do it in manager would involve (as @Brucanna indicated above) entries dated the disposal date to acheive:
- A negative asset entry of one original new computer value
- And depreciation adjustment within the limitations described here
However it does get a bit confusing simultaneously updating the book value, Current assets purchase price, accumulated depreciation, and loss on disposal. Particularly given Manager does not allow journal entries or payment / receipts to Fixed assets, accumulated depreciation" and “Fixed assets, loss on disposal”
I guess I will have to properly work out a clean way of doing it, if any of my combined assets are not disposed of together.
Edit 3
Deleted lots of wrong assumptions