Well, I think I may have learned more about human nature than fixed assets management in this discussion thread. I recently had a client who had problems bringing along FAM when upgrading from 2016 Enterprise to 2019 Enterprise. Account numbers for assets did not transfer, and depreciation methods and asset life came across with some correct and some not. There were other things that were a problem, too.
When I called Enterprise support for my client, in three different discussions, no one had worked with FAM in the last 12 months because it is so rarely used, or perhaps it is so trouble-free that no support is ever needed. Without going into detail of all the steps taken, we also upgraded FAM through each version of QBE from 2016 to 2019 and ran into problems from 2017 to 2018.
Because two of the reps were having to learn on the fly, my client footed a large bill for my time while we got only inches ahead of where we started. What we needed was a quick solution to editing multiple items at the same time, and it wasn’t until a third call on the third business day that we had someone walk me through the upgrade process again to get a file that had most things right but was missing all GL account numbers from the previous versions.
Support people were committed, patient, friendly, but had very little experience with the product. With yearly upgrades and support now part of the new Enterprise product offer, you will have someone to guide you through upgrading QB and FAM, so it may be a safer bet to use it. I highly recommend getting a copy of your CPA’s asset list and depreciation schedule for your business as well as getting year closing entries from them. This is follow up that they often forget. With this information annually, you are free to estimate year end results, and have your books and support information available for your next CPA if you need to change. Another client was stuck this year when his old CPA was non responsive and his new CPA had no Asset schedule.
If you can go without depreciation entries until year end, great. You can defer Fixed Assets issues to your CPA and her software. If you need them monthly and can use a recurring template JE, that’s great, too. Then you can make a year end adjustment from your CPA to tidy things up. If you need close to perfect depreciation entries each month, then use FAM but be aware of what you are getting into. And if you have more advanced needs for tracking assets and barcoding them, look beyond FAM for a solution that can help with those things plus the accounting aspects.
Thank you for your patience reading through this. I hope the information is worth the blood, sweat, and tears from my client and myself that it took to share.
