Depreciation accuracy
Establishing the highest standards of depreciation accuracy and best practices in fixed asset management will pay off in savings. There are many reasons why spreadsheets are not the solution for all business needs. With so many potential causes of and opportunities for errors, companies must look to software solutions that are designed for specific, specialized tasks to eliminate them and ensure sound financial tracking and reporting.
Let’s identify the top 7 issues which businesses using spreadsheets to manage their fixed asset data are failing to address.
Corporate governance requirements
Today, companies of all sizes are subject to increased scrutiny by government agencies and regulatory boards reacting to recent business reports and investors’ requests for higher standards of accountability, transparency and overall corporate behavior. The main goal here is to improve financial management, reporting and corporate governance. With such a high degree of attention focused on your organization, why would you risk the integrity of your financial data by relying solely on spreadsheets? Accurate and effective implementation, management, monitoring and updating can easily be accomplished with a specialist fixed asset management system in place; it’s the only real way to ensure compliance.
Inaccurate depreciation calculations
Nearly all spreadsheets contain errors, which is to be expected with information entered without good controls. Whether it be the background asset data or the formula itself, there’s little doubt that the depreciation calculations are likely to be inaccurate. Several people within one accounting department will often access, manage and edit the same spreadsheet, making errors even more likely. A specialist fixed asset management system will eliminate costly depreciation errors. Depreciation formulas and asset lives can be defaulted for each book, based on any defined asset category. Processing depreciation this way is both quick and easy, completed with just a click of a button.