Get the month's book depreciation entry, its disposal entries, and a per-account roll-forward out of the register you already maintain.
You classify each GL account once. Every asset on that account inherits the setup, this year and every year after.
This article covers what the feature produces and what has to be true first. Each job below has its own article.
Where this is in the app
Dashboard → open the return → Report tab → Report Template → Journal Entries or GL Rollforward & Reconciliation
The account setup they depend on lives on the return's GL accounts tab.
Everything here is book basis
DepreciationPro builds these entries from each asset's GAAP book record. Tax depreciation never enters a journal entry or the rollforward, and no tax figure is ever substituted for a missing book figure. Every screen carries a visible Book basis (GAAP) badge.
The five account roles
You assign one of these types to each GL account. It tells DepreciationPro where to put that account in an entry.
Account type | Where DepreciationPro uses it |
Asset (cost) | The cost account your assets are assigned to. Credited on the disposal entry, and the account that carries the pairing to the other two. |
Accumulated Depreciation | Credited on the monthly entry, debited on the disposal entry. |
Depreciation Expense | Debited on the monthly entry. |
Gain/Loss | Takes the difference on a disposal entry. Set once per entity. |
Clearing | Takes net proceeds on a disposal entry. Set once per entity. |
Accounts start Unclassified, and an unclassified account never resolves into an entry. An asset whose accounts are not ready is listed by name and left out. It is never posted to a default account.
What you get
Three outputs, all on a return's Report tab.
Journal Entries report. A balanced entry for any month, or the full year, with that period's disposal entries below it. Exports to Excel and PDF.
QuickBooks, Sage Intacct, or Xero CSV. The same entry as an import file for any of the three systems, with a warning when you are about to post a period twice.
GL Rollforward & Reconciliation report. Opening, additions, disposals, closing, per account, against the client's trial balance.
Two things have to be true first
The asset needs GAAP book data. A book record with a useful life greater than zero and a placed-in-service date.
The asset's cost account needs to be classified and paired. Classified as Asset (cost), and linked to a depreciation-expense account and an accumulated-depreciation account.
The two are reported differently, which is worth knowing before you go looking for a missing asset.
An asset whose accounts are not ready is named on the report, with its own reason and the depreciation it would have posted. See What is excluded from a journal entry, and why.
An asset with no GAAP book data has no book depreciation to post, so it does not appear in the depreciation entry and is not listed alongside the account problems. It surfaces in two other places: the GL Rollforward counts it and says so, and if the asset was disposed this year it is named in the disposal block. To find these assets, use the GL Rollforward's no-book count or the Book depr. tab.
The Report tab has to be able to compute
The Journal Entries template is part of the return's Report tab, so anything blocking that tab blocks this report too. The common one is an unresolved bonus election: when a recovery class has some assets electing out of bonus and some not, the tab shows Bonus elections need review before this report can compute and no report renders until you resolve it.
That gate is about the tax side, and these entries are book basis, but it still has to clear before you can reach them.