Fixed Assets Audit Catches Errors, Cuts Waste & Keeps You on Track

It’s important for businesses and organizations to conduct a periodic fixed assets audit to ensure that accounting for capital assets and depreciation is in compliance with their respective objectives. A fixed assets audit can be a daunting task for anyone who’s unfamiliar with the process or even with the core terminology associated with the process. Capital assets are really the same thing as fixed assets; the term refers to the items purchased by the organization in order to conduct business, but which are not sold in order to generate revenue. Good examples include office furniture, office space, and IT equipment intended for business use. Capital assets have a useful life of at least one year.

The audit factors the addition and phase-out of fixed assets over a particular period of time, examines whether the reported fixed-asset balance agrees with asset records. Each asset within a fixed assets audit must be classified and valued correctly, and must include accurate purchase and/or sales dates. Fixed asset records generally include such details as a description of the asset, its original cost, the asset’s location, the rate of depreciation, accumulated depreciation, depreciation for the current year and details about its sale, if applicable.

Before you begin a fixed assets audit, you need to decide how you’re going to organize it. Are you going to analyze assets from throughout the company, or within a specific department, for example? Next, you’ve got to construct a comprehensive list of your assets within that classification. Then review the recommended procedures and best practices for conducting a fixed asset audit. The audit, once completed, should reveal such issues as damaged and otherwise unusable assets; ghost assets; inaccurate depreciation calculation; missing or inaccurate recordkeeping, including documentation regarding the movement of assets; and lack of asset tags.

If there are problems in your asset tracking and management processes, you’ll want to know about them as soon as possible so they don’t continue to drain your resources. Barcode tags and mobile technology have made the fixed assets audit simpler than ever. Asset Panda offers the most powerful, yet intuitive solution for your needs. Using Asset Panda’s free mobile iOS and Android apps, you can conduct fast and accurate audits that give you the peace of mind knowing that you’re making decisions based on real-time data. The app syncs with the cloud and includes a mobile barcode scanner, so you won’t need a separate handheld scanner or any other hardware to conduct your fixed assets audit. With your mobile device, you can conduct a thorough audit anytime, anywhere. The Asset Panda app automatically updates your location and area information and creates audit exception reports. Asset Panda is incredibly user-friendly and intuitive and requires no special training to use, and you can add as many users as you’d like.

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Inconsistent recordkeeping, loss, theft and unreported damages cut into your bottom line each year. If you’re ready to stop throwing money away and make the most of the resources you have, try Asset Panda to conduct your fixed assets audit. For more information, including details about our free 14-day trial, visit assetpanda.com