Suggestion: Getting Rid of Intangible Assets

Do we really need a whole tab for intangible assets? I mean you do the exact same thing you do with fixed assets under a different name?

Why not merge both under “Capital Assets” or simply “Assets” and let there be the following built-in accounts:

  • Fixed Assets + Depreciation
  • Intangibles + Amortization
  • Natural Resources + Depletion

The user can either manually select the accounts or there can be a drop down list to choose the type of asset.

Personally, I don’t like having to maintain the exact same thing three time just because of differences in terminology. Rather, I would like to see manager support more methods of depreciation/amortization instead of having separate tabs for Fixed Assets, Intangibles and Natural Resources.

You can do what you are suggesting with the customization currently available. The reason why a separate tab for Intangible asset was implemented was to enable businesses to have a separate listing of the two types of assets (Intangible and tangible non-current assets).

Also… we should have the “specular” one for liabilities, ie for loans and so on.

That’s right, but even when they are combined, you can still get your separate list if you search “natural resources”, “intangible” or “fixed assets.”

The reason why I brought this up is because of your idea to Extend Custom Fields to Intangibles which had me thinking yes it is a legitimate request but didn’t Lubos already do that for fixed assets? Why do it again?

My point is, yes we should’ve had custom fields for intangibles when custom fields were introduced to fixed assets. The developer shouldn’t repeat the same work he does on fixed assets again on intangibles and possibly a third time on a future natural resources tab (I hope we don’t get to three separate tabs for capital assets) as this would be wasted time by the developer he could have used developing straight line depreciation, units of production depreciation or any other open idea such as this one for example :point_down:

Or many other basic functions like api, status for different tabs and so on.

What does this cost the user? The user would have to click on one tab and search for the list (i.e. fixed asset, intangible, or natural resources) which is one more step compared to going directly to the intangibles tabs.

How do we benefit from less tabs? Less time spent by the developer repeating tasks, uniformity in structure of capital assets, automatic inclusion of natural resources without having to open a separate tab and less tabs to separately maintain by the end user.

I really hope this can get you on board with this :grimacing:

2 Likes

Some users prefer to have these two types of non-current assets managed in different tabs. There is an option to ignore one of the modules or use the two and I think it is something good.

You can use the fixed asset module to manage a depletable asset.

I totally agree that maintaining the Intangible Asset module together with the Fixed Asset module means extra work for the programmer but redesigning the module may take more time and energy than you may think.

The way manager is designed, I don’t think that that’s an issue. It’s after all an object database for a reason, just copy those intangible objects type to fixed asset type and deal with any differences in format later or just leave the extra fields and objects hanging, no problem … But I have been wrong before and I could be wrong here but @lubos could correct me.

It might cause backward compatibility issues, but hey, at the rate manager is moving you’re going to lose backwards compatibility at one point or another.

I understand your concern, I’m also waiting for the addition of other depreciation methods (Straight-line method especially).

:pray:

1 Like

You can if you use different Control Accounts for each group within the Fixed Assets tab.
First, create under Settings > Chart of accounts a new BS Group - Capital Assets.

Then under Settings > Control Accounts create your sub-group such as:
0000000 Bug 4

To get all your sub-groups:
0000000 Bug 4a

Then when entering a capital asset item you make the selection: (the default is Fixed Asset)
0000000 Bug 5

Then on the Balance Sheet you have:
0000000 Bug 5a

For reporting you need to create a Custom Report to group the items under a control account.

Also, I have just noticed for all tabs, not just Fixed Assets, that the Control Accounts are no longer listed next to a tab item. For example, if your Inventory Items had Control Accounts - Raw materials / Finished Goods, then these use to be displayed next to the Inventory Item.

1 Like