Reports and accounting

Hi, Bobby Chiggins.

I'm by no means an accounting professional, but I do have some insight to provide that can help get you with depreciation tracking.

To track the depreciation of an asset that you’ve already purchased (and added to the Chart of Accounts), you need two new accounts in QuickBooks:

• Fixed Asset type of account called something like Accumulated Depreciation.
• Expense type of account called something like Depreciation Expense.

After you set up these two accounts, you can record the asset depreciation with a journal entry.

Here's how:

1. From the QuickBooks Company menu, choose Make General Journal Entries.
2. (Optional) In the Make General Journal Entries window, change the Date field.
3. The Entry No. should automatically populate. If not, type a number for your journal entries. QuickBooks Desktop will automatically number subsequent journal entries.
4. Enter the General Journal Entry details.
   1. Enter or select the first account in your transaction. If you are using an A/R (accounts receivable) or A/P (accounts payable) account, the first account in the General Journal transaction should be the AR or AP account.
   2. Enter the debit or credit amount for the account you selected in step a.
   3. (Optional) Type a memo describing the transaction. This memo will appear on reports and will include the General Journal entry.
   4. Enter or select the Customer, Vendor, Employee, or Other name associated with the transaction. This is required if you use A/R or A/P accounts.
   5. (Optional) If you selected an Expense account along with a customer or job, you can make the amount billable to the customer by checking the Billable column.
   6. (Optional) Assign a class to the amount.
   7. Repeat steps 4a through 4e to enter distribution lines until the transaction reaches a zero balance. The total in the Debit column should be equal to the total in the Credit column.
5. Click Save & Close.

However, I'd suggest consulting an accountant to help and guide on which account to debit and credit. Your accountant can provide more expert ways of dealing with this situation.

You can get more information about journal entry: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Help-Articles/Record-a-journal-entry/td-p/203691.

Also, you may find these articles helpful:

• Manage fixed assets using Fixed Asset Manager (FAM).
• Set up Fixed Asset Manager (FAM).
• Use Fixed Asset Manager in QuickBooks Desktop.

You can always get back to us if you have more questions in tracking depreciation. Have a great weekend.