Keep a second set of depreciation figures on an asset, separate from its tax figures, and know where each one shows up.
That second set is called a GAAP book. You set one up per asset, and the app computes and reports it independently.
Where this is in the app
Dashboard → open the return → Assets tab → open the asset → GAAP Book tab
The GAAP Book tab sits beside the Tax tab on any open asset. The return-level views are the Book depr. tab and the book reports on the Report tab, covered below.
Book and tax never touch
The book calculation reads the asset's original cost, its in-service date, its disposal date, and its GAAP book record. Nothing else.
Section 179, bonus, MACRS lives, and tax conventions are not inputs to it. Editing a book never changes a tax figure on the asset, and editing the tax side never recalculates the book.
What a GAAP book record holds
These are the fields on the GAAP Book tab.
Field | What it does |
Useful Life (Months) | Entered in months, so 60 is a five-year life. The book record is built around it, and it arrives already set to 60. |
Salvage Value | Subtracted from cost to get the amount the app depreciates (a floor, not a subtraction, on declining balance; not used at all by the MACRS methods). Defaults to 0. Your firm's policy determines what you enter here. |
Method | Straight-Line, 200% or 150% Declining Balance, Sum-of-Years-Digits, or one of the MACRS methods (200% DB, 150% DB, Straight-Line, ADS). New books arrive on Straight-Line. |
Convention | Full-Month for the non-MACRS methods: a full month is charged in the month the asset goes into service. The MACRS methods take Half-Year, Mid-Month, or Mid-Quarter instead. |
Book In-Service Date | Optional. Left blank, the book follows the asset's tax placed-in-service date. |
Accumulated Book Depreciation, plus an As-of Date | For assets you are bringing across part-way through their life. |
Cost is not a field on the book. The book uses the asset's own original cost, so correcting a cost updates both sides at once.
Where book numbers show up
The GAAP Book tab on an asset. Beside its Tax tab. This is where you set the book up and see what it computes. Once a book exists, the tab carries a green "Active" badge.
The Book depr. tab on a return. A sortable grid of every asset on the return that has a book, with totals.
Two reports on the Report tab. Book Depreciation Schedule, and Tax vs. Book Reconciliation.
Book figures also feed the journal entries, the disposal entries, and the GL roll-forward. Those surfaces never substitute a tax figure when an asset has no book. The disposal entries and the roll-forward name the gap; the monthly depreciation entry simply has nothing to post for that asset and leaves it out. See What is excluded from a journal entry, and why.