Transfers are transactions that move your assets from one location to another. While you may merely change the general field information of an asset, if it changes the General Ledger information, your YTD Depreciation Expense will no longer tie to your GL. For example, changing the “Owner” (or, “Custodian”) of an asset wouldn’t indicate a change in the GL. However, moving the asset from the Operations to the QA department may change the depreciation expense account. If you move it, for example, in July, after it’s already depreciated $7,000, and merely change the GL Expense Account at the top of the asset, you will be out of balance, because the new expense account will show the new depreciation, plus the $7,000 that was previously depreciated. The rule of thumb is: if the modification is going to change your GL, perform a transfer. If not, just make a modification to the general fields of the asset.
You may navigate to the File menu, then Edit Company (you may also use System Administration / Edit a Company in version 2012) to indicate the field that is going to be your Transfer By field. Change it to the field that will indicate a modification in your GL (you may even change it to the GL Expense Account).
You may perform a transfer using the Asset menu’s Transfer option, or Transfer an Asset from the Tasks Panel from the Asset Detail view. If your Transfer By field is not the expense account, you may edit the new expense account by clicking Edit General Info (in 2012, it is in the Optional Transfer Parameter section of the transfer transaction). To transfer many assets from the one or multiple originating locations to one destination, make a group from the Asset List view, then then select the assets in the group. Choose Bulk Transfer from the Asset menu (or Bulk Transfer Assets from the Tasks panel). You may even transfer assets to another company, and/or treat the previous asset as a disposal. Partial transfers are also possible. Details are in the user guide, found off the Help menu.
Once a transfer is performed, the old asset keeps the previous Asset ID, or System #, with a Status of “Transferred.” The Book Information fields are disabled, and you may no longer perform another transaction on them. A new asset is created with a prior accumulated depreciation (or “Beginning Accum”) of the previous asset’s accumulated depreciation at the time of the transfer. After the next time you run depreciation, check out the Depreciation Expense Report. It shows exactly as it should – with the YTD depreciation through last period showing on the old asset and the new depreciation showing on the new asset.
Questions? Don’t forget about the great User Guide (Help / User Guide), or about our awesome technical support! Their number and your customer number (you’ll need them both) may be found in Help / Contact Us.
