Starting balance for fixed asset

Hi. Entered the beg bal for the purchase price and accum depn of the truck, a component of Plant, Property & Equipment. When I viewed the summary of accounts, the truck shows its purchase price,
its corresponding accumulated depn 0, the Plant, Property & Equipment (Fixed Asset controlling account) shows the amount of its accum depn in negative. What I want to happen is Plant, Property & Equipment will show amount of Truck while Plant, Property & Equipment, accumulated depreciation will show the accum pen of truck. Please help.

First question: Is Plant, Property & Equipment the name of an account group you created that includes Fixed assets, or is it a different name you gave to the Fixed assets account that appears automatically when you enable that tab? Your description was confusing.

Second question: What control account is the truck assigned to?

Third question: How did you create the Plant, Property & Equipment, accumulated depreciation account?

Fourth question: Can you post some screen shots? Show the relevant section of your Summary page, the edit screen for the truck, and the relevant portion of your chart of accounts under Settings.

Hello! Thank you for the response:

Answer to 1st question: Plant, Property & Equipment is the name of an account group I created (I deleted the Fixed Assets account that appeared automatically by mistake).

Answer to 2nd question: Truck was assigned to Fixed assets

Answer to 3rd question: Plant, Property & Equipment, accumulated depreciation is I think a default account.

Answer to 4th question: Here are some screen shots with additional entries:

Hope to hear from you again.

Thank you so much…

Additional screen shot that may be of help.

Thank you…

Still in entering beginning balances. This is how I want to see in the report:

Service Vehicle 700,000.00
Accum Dep-Service Vehicle 350,000.00
Truck 3,262,078.00
Accum Depn-Truck 326,207.80

Thank you and all the best…

You have created several problems for yourself that interfere with your stated objective:

  • Your software is out of date, so nothing I say or you read in the Guides about fixed assets, depreciation, or starting balances will apply. Update your software before doing anything else.
  • You deleted the control account, Fixed assets, that the program expects to use for posting fixed asset purchases or carried-forward balances from a previous accounting system.
  • You created stand-alone control accounts for each of your three fixed assets. Contrary to what you say, the truck and all other assets were not assigned to Fixed assets, because you deleted that account and assigned every asset to its own control account. So purchase costs for them will be posted to those accounts, not to your self-created Property, Plant & Equipment account. That account may or may not be a control account. I can’t tell, because you did not show its Edit screen. But whether it is or not, it isn’t being used for anything.

How to achieve what you want? You need to unwind the mistakes. The following is based on your stated objectives:

  1. Update your software.
  2. Delete all your fixed assets. If Manager tells you something cannot be deleted because it is referenced elsewhere, delete what is referenced. The goal here is to remove all traces of the assets and transactions related to them.
  3. Go to Customize and disable the Fixed Assets tab, then Update.
  4. Go back to Customize and re-enable the Fixed Assets tab. The program should automatically restore the Fixed assets account.
  5. Go to Chart of Accounts under Settings, Edit the Fixed assets account and change its name to Plant, Property & Equipment.
  6. While in Chart of Accounts, delete the three custom control accounts you created for the three assets. The only effect of these was to list each asset separately on the chart of accounts. That isn’t the usual practice, because it just makes the chart of accounts long, and those accounts will remain even after you dispose of the assets in the future.
  7. Also delete the three self-created depreciation accounts. If Manager notifies you there are transactions referencing the account, track them down and delete them.
  8. Recreate your three fixed assets. Assign them to your renamed control account, Plant, Property & Equipment. (They should already be assigned there by default, since this account is the renamed version of the built-in Fixed assets account.)
  9. Go to Starting Balances under Settings and enter your carried-over purchase prices and accumulated depreciation for each asset. Follow instruction in this Guide: Manager Cloud. Also read the Guides about purchasing and depreciating fixed assets.

Now, you should have all your assets’ purchase costs listed under Plant, Property & Equipment and all depreciation listed under Plant, Property & Equipment, accumulated dep’n. That is what you said you wanted.

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Thank you very much. No wonder I get nowehere with my fixed assets. As I go along, I would be needing your help/assistance again so please have patience with me. Really appreciate your help and wisdom.