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Tracking Depreciation and Asset Value Over Time
Depreciation is one of those topics that sounds like an accounting problem until you realize it's actually an IT problem. When finance asks "what's the current book value of our hardware fleet?" or "which assets are fully depreciated and ready for disposal?" — that's a question IT has to answer. AssetCompass gives you the data you need to answer it without becoming an accountant.
What Depreciation Actually Means Here
Depreciation is the reduction in an asset's book value over time. A laptop you paid $1,500 for in 2022 isn't worth $1,500 today. For accounting purposes, that value decreases on a schedule until it reaches zero (or a nominal salvage value).
AssetCompass doesn't calculate depreciation automatically — that's your accounting software's job, and honestly it should stay there. What AssetCompass does is give you the clean, reliable input data: purchase cost, purchase date, and asset details. From there, you or your finance team can run the math.
The Method Most IT Teams Use: Straight-Line
Straight-line depreciation spreads the cost evenly over an asset's useful life. It's simple, predictable, and what most small and mid-size companies use for IT hardware.
The formula:
For most hardware, salvage value is $0 (nobody's buying a 5-year-old laptop for anything meaningful) and useful life is 3–5 years depending on your refresh policy.
| Asset type | Typical useful life |
|---|---|
| Laptops and desktops | 3–5 years |
| Monitors | 5–7 years |
| Servers | 5–7 years |
| Networking equipment | 5–7 years |
| Mobile phones | 2–3 years |
| Printers | 5 years |
These are guidelines, not rules. Your actual policy might differ based on tax treatment or internal refresh cycles. Check with your finance team if it matters for accounting purposes.
What to Fill In (And Where)
To make depreciation tracking useful, you need two things on every asset record:
- Purchase Cost — the actual price paid, before tax. Found on the invoice or receipt.
- Purchase Date — the date the asset was acquired. This is your depreciation start date.
Both fields are in the Details section when you add or edit an asset. If you're importing a spreadsheet, use the purchase_cost and purchase_date columns.
Getting the Numbers to Finance
Once your purchase data is in AssetCompass, the cleanest handoff to finance is a CSV export. Go to Assets, filter to the assets you want (e.g., active laptops only), and export to CSV. The export includes purchase cost and purchase date.
Your finance team can open the CSV in Excel, add a "Useful Life" column and an "Annual Depreciation" column using the formula above, and calculate current book value from there. If you have a fixed asset register in your accounting software, the CSV gives you everything needed to update it.
When Assets Are Fully Depreciated
A fully depreciated asset isn't automatically worth disposing of — it just means its book value is zero. Some assets run reliably long past their accounting life. Others fail right on schedule.
To find assets approaching or past end of useful life: export your assets CSV with purchase dates and filter by purchase date older than your typical useful life threshold. Everything that came up is a candidate for your next hardware refresh review.
When you decide an asset is done, change its status to Pending Disposal and work through your decommission process. AssetCompass tracks the full lifecycle — including the disposal event — so you have a record even after the hardware is gone.