A laptop, a delivery van, a machine — assets lose value over their working life, and that loss is a real expense your accounts must show. Finocket keeps a fixed-asset register and works out depreciation for you, so your balance sheet carries each asset at what it's actually worth and your profit reflects the wear.
The register
Record each asset with its cost, purchase and put-to-use dates, any salvage value, and the method. The Fixed-asset register then shows every asset with its accumulated depreciation and net book value, rolled up by class.
SLM or WDV, to the paise
Both Indian methods are built in. SLM (straight-line) charges a fixed amount each month — cost minus salvage, spread evenly over the useful life. WDV (written-down value) charges a percentage of the reducing book value, so the monthly charge tapers off. Every figure is computed in whole paise with a salvage floor, and the final month absorbs any rounding residual — so a completed schedule sums to the depreciable base exactly, never a rupee out.
Pro-rated from the day it went to use
Depreciation starts from the put-to-use date (falling back to the purchase date), and the first month is charged in proportion to the days the asset was actually in use that month. Put a machine to use on the 20th and only those days count — no over-charging a full month for a part-month asset.
The depreciation voucher
Posting depreciation writes a balanced journal — Dr Depreciation (an expense) and Cr Accumulated Depreciation (against the asset) — so your trial balance still foots to zero. Posting is idempotent per asset and period: running the same asset's month again does nothing, so depreciation is never double-charged.
Disposal gain or loss
When you sell or scrap an asset, record the disposal date and amount. No depreciation is charged for the disposal month or after, and the register's disposals view shows the gain or loss on each sale — the difference between what you got and the asset's net book value at that point.
The movement schedule your auditor reads
A register that only shows what you own today answers half the question. The Fixed asset register also shows the movement for the year: the gross block and accumulated depreciation you opened with, the additions and disposals through the year, and the closing figures — which become next year's opening. That is the shape a Schedule III note is built from, and the one your auditor foots first.
Pick the financial year at the top of that section and download it as a spreadsheet. The columns come out in the order a working register keeps them, so you can put last year's sheet beside this one and read across.
Asset ID, GST and the depreciable base
Each asset can carry your own asset ID — the number on the physical tag, not ours — and the GST you paid, separately from its cost.
Whether that GST is depreciable depends on one thing: if you claimed the input credit, it is not part of the cost you write down, because you already got the money back. Tick ITC claimed and the register excludes it from the depreciable base. Leave it blank if you genuinely do not know — blank is recorded as unknown rather than as “no”, so the question stays visible instead of quietly changing a written-down value.
Opening balances that cannot be opening balances
If you migrated an asset mid-life, you can state the depreciation already taken and the date it is stated as at. That date matters: an opening balance dated inside the year it is supposed to open is not a brought-forward figure, and treating it as one counts a year of depreciation twice. Where that happens the register names the asset rather than quietly using the number.
How the part-year month is worked out
Depreciation is charged monthly. The month you first put an asset to use is pro-rated on actual days from that date — so an asset in service from the 15th of a 31-day month is charged 17/31 of that month, and every month after is whole. The register and its download both say so, because Schedule II requires the method to be disclosed.
If your CA's own working sheet uses a 30-day month, both are correct. Note 2 of Schedule II says depreciation is pro-rated “from the date” of addition and does not prescribe a day count, and ICAI's guidance expressly allows grouping into 15 days, a month or a quarter where the amounts are not material. On a ₹1,00,000 asset over five years the two conventions differ by about ₹25, once, in the first month.
None of this applies to your income-tax depreciation, which is a different calculation: an asset put to use for fewer than 180 days in the year gets half the rate, otherwise the full rate. There is no pro-rating at all, and the 180 days are counted as real days — so the cut-off falls in early October.
Access & control
Fixed assets & depreciation is an optional module (currently in beta) — turn it on under Settings → Modules & features. Owners and assistants maintain the register; an invited accountant reads it. Verify the figures with your CA before finalising the year.
Related: Financial statements, Closing stock & cost of goods sold.