Thanks for the feedback on your reasoning. I suppose in my experience, it hasn't been as big of an issue. Even when I've managed FA within companies, we never felt the need to track the costs associated with each and every asset on our books, so I appreciate you sharing a different POV.
How do you measure the value that the asset provides throughout its use, compared to the costs of having the asset? I would think that would also be a factor, would it not? Or are you only comparing assets with similar functions and purposes to determine which are duds among many? If I were looking at the cost of maintaining a piece of equipment versus the cost of maintaining a building or a vehicle, I wouldn't really consider these things to be comparable since each has a different purpose and provides different value in a company. If you are looking at the cost of maintaining a particular computer compared to other computers used for the same purpose, then I could see how the maintenance costs of one computer in the bunch might indicate a problem with that computer.
If this is something you really want to track in QB, I'm sure there is a way to get it done, but it could be quite cumbersome to maintain, especially if you have a lot of assets to track. If you had just one vehicle and you wanted to track those expenses, it would be very easy, but once you get to tracking a fleet of vehicles, you are probably creating more work for yourself than it is worth.
As I've said in other threads, companies should select the system that fits their needs, rather than trying to fit their company into a system because of its perceived ease of use or low cost. If you find that you are spending more time trying to maintain special processes in QB to get the type of reporting you want, having to add modules to get the functionality you need, or having to create manual processes outside of the system because it doesn't do what you need it to do, it might be time to consider a more robust and sophisticated system that fits the size and complexity of your company.
Some of my larger clients who have thousands of assets to track, use HP or IBM products to track assets, software, service tickets, costs to apply to various departments, etc. Each asset has an asset tag with a bar code, so when the user of the asset needs service on that asset, they enter in the tag number and the system can track all service tickets related to each employee in the company, as well as each asset, its department, and location. None of those clients are using QB for their accounting though.
