Customizing the Asset Depreciation Starter Workbooks

You can use the asset depreciation starter workbooks for a wide variety of depreciation calculations. However, you might want to change the starter workbooks so that they more precisely meet your requirements. For example, you can add text that describes the asset, describes the units of use that calibrate its estimated life, or identifies the supporting documentation for the schedule. You can also increase or decrease the number of periods.

Note: Before you change anything in the asset depreciation starter workbooks other than the input parameters, unprotect the document.

Changing the Number of Periods

You can easily increase or decrease the number of periods shown in any of the asset depreciation schedules. To increase the number of periods, remove the border from the last row of the depreciation schedule and then copy the current last row of the schedule (the row for Period 20) down as needed. To decrease the number of periods, simply delete any unneeded rows from the bottom of the schedule.

Tip: If you’re using the starter workbook for accounting and bookkeeping, use a number of periods that is equal to or greater than the estimated life of the asset. However, if you’re using the starter workbook as a building block for a financial projection, you’ll probably want the number of periods in your depreciation schedule to correspond to the number of periods in the other schedules that make up your financial forecasting model.