A depreciation schedule is a table showing each asset's cost, method, annual depreciation expense and remaining book value over its life.
A depreciation schedule is a table that lists each fixed asset a business owns together with its cost, depreciation method, useful life, the depreciation expense charged in each period, and the remaining book value. It is the working document that turns the accounting concept of depreciation into actual numbers: what was charged this year, what will be charged next year, and what every asset is still worth on paper.
What a depreciation schedule contains
A usable schedule has one row per asset (or per asset class) and, at minimum, these columns:
- Asset description and ID - enough detail to match the row to a real laptop, machine, or vehicle.
- Cost - the purchase price plus anything needed to bring the asset into use, such as delivery or installation.
- Depreciation method - most often straight-line for its simplicity, sometimes declining balance for assets that lose most of their value early.
- Useful life and salvage value - how long the asset is expected to serve, and what it should be worth at the end.
- Depreciation per period and accumulated depreciation - this period’s expense plus everything charged so far.
- Closing book value - cost minus accumulated depreciation, the figure that flows into the balance sheet.
A worked example
A laptop bought for €1,500 with a three-year useful life and a €300 salvage value, depreciated straight-line, carries annual depreciation of (1,500 - 300) / 3 = €400. Its schedule looks like this:
| Year | Opening book value | Depreciation expense | Closing book value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €1,500 | €400 | €1,100 |
| 2 | €1,100 | €400 | €700 |
| 3 | €700 | €400 | €300 |
After year three the laptop sits at its salvage value and no further depreciation is charged, even if it stays in service. Multiply this row by every asset the business owns and you have the full fixed asset depreciation schedule.
Why the schedule matters
Three different jobs lean on the same table. The accountant needs the period’s total depreciation expense for the profit and loss account and the closing book values for the balance sheet. Tax filings draw on the same cost and life data, even where tax rules apply their own rates. And operationally, the schedule is an early-warning list: assets approaching the end of their useful life are the ones to budget replacements for, which is far easier to plan from a table than from a surprise failure.
Keeping the schedule and the register in sync
The classic failure mode is divergence: the schedule lives in the accountant’s spreadsheet while the equipment list lives with operations, and within a year the two disagree. Disposed assets keep depreciating, new purchases never get a row, and the year-end reconciliation becomes archaeology. The fix is a single source of truth for purchase date, price, supplier, and expected useful life, reviewed against reality whenever assets are bought, retired, or written off. AMPthilly keeps purchase price and date, supplier, expected useful life, and depreciation context on each asset record, with CSV export so finance builds the schedule from the same data the rest of the organisation uses - see /features/ for the financial fields available. Whatever the tool, the habit is the same: when an asset leaves the building, its row leaves the schedule.
Related terms
- Depreciation - the accounting concept the schedule puts numbers on
- Straight-Line Depreciation - the simplest method, an equal charge each year
- Declining Balance Depreciation - an accelerated method front-loading the expense
- Salvage Value - the estimated worth at the end of useful life
- Book Value - cost minus accumulated depreciation at any point in time