Assets

An Asset is a piece of equipment your company owns — a truck, a skid steer, a trailer, a mower — that you want GO to track. GO keeps the whole story of each asset in one place: what it is, where it lives, what it cost, how it depreciates on your books, when it works on which job, and what happened when you finally sold or scrapped it.

Behind the scenes, every asset gets its own internal cost-collector project, so hours and costs can be charged to the machine exactly the way they are charged to a job. That is why Assets live on the Projects page: an asset is a piece of equipment tracked like a project.

This article covers the Assets list, the Asset dialog, the asset detail page, depreciation, scheduling equipment on the Schedule board, and disposal.

Where to find Assets

Navigation: in the left sidebar, click Projects. Above the grid you will see three tabs: Jobs | Indirect | Assets. Click Assets.

If you do not see the Assets tab, your role does not have the assets view permission — ask an admin.

When the Assets tab is active, an Include Disposed switch appears on the right. Turn it on to also show assets you have already disposed of; they are hidden by default.

The Assets list

The list is a spreadsheet-style grid, one row per asset. Use the search box above the grid to find an asset by tag or name, click a column header to sort, and use the funnel icon to filter. Extra columns (Serial Number, VIN, Miles, Book Value, Purchase Date, and more) are hidden by default — open the column picker on the right edge of the grid to show them.

The default columns

The right-click menu

Right-click any row (or the empty grid) to open the menu:

Disposed assets are read-only. Once an asset is disposed, the Edit, Dispose, and Delete actions no longer appear for it — its history is frozen for your books.

Adding or editing an asset

Right-click in the grid and choose Add Asset. The dialog ("Register a piece of equipment or a vehicle and its financial details.") has six tabs. Only two fields are required — Asset Tag and Name — everything else can be filled in later.

Identity tab

Details tab

Serial Number, VIN, Make, Model, Model Year, Color, Registration # and expiration, Plate / Tag # and expiration — the paperwork fields.

Two color fields live here, and they mean different things:

• Color — the physical paint color of the unit ("White", "Cat Yellow"). Text only.

• Schedule color — a color swatch you pick. It tints this asset's dot in the Schedule board's asset panel and its bars on the board, so dispatchers can tell units apart at a glance.

Meters & Rate tab

• Current Miles / Miles As Of and Current Hours / Hours As Of — the latest odometer and hour-meter readings and the dates you took them.

• Internal Charge Rate / Rate Unit — what a job gets charged for using this unit, Per Day or Per Hour.

Purchase & Depreciation tab

GL Accounts tab

Five account pickers from your Chart of Accounts control where this asset's activity posts in the General Ledger:

• Asset Account — the fixed-asset account that carries the unit's cost.

• Depreciation Expense Account — debited each month depreciation posts.

• Accumulated Depreciation Account — credited each month depreciation posts.

• Gain / Loss on Disposal Account — receives the gain or loss when the asset is disposed.

• Cash Account — debited for disposal proceeds when the asset is sold.

Depreciation tab

A read-only summary of the asset's depreciation: Cost, Accumulated, Net Book Value, a badge showing whether the schedule Reconciles with GL, and the month-by-month schedule table. From here you can click Open full detail to jump to the asset detail page, or Dispose asset.

The asset detail page

Click Open full detail on the Depreciation tab to open the asset's own page. It shows:

• Header — the asset's name, tag, make and model, a back arrow to the Assets list, and a Dispose button (or a red Disposed badge if it is already gone).

• Stat strip — Original Cost, Accum. Depreciation, Net Book Value, Salvage Value, Method, Useful Life, In-Service, and Posted (how many months have posted). Disposed assets also show Disposal Date, Proceeds, and the Gain or Loss.

• Depreciation Schedule — one row per month: #, Month, Depreciation (the amount for that month), Book Value After, Status, and GL Reference (a link to the posted journal entry).

How depreciation posting works

Each schedule row has one of three statuses:

• Posted — the month's depreciation has been written to the General Ledger. The GL Reference column links to the entry.

• Due — the month has arrived but has not posted yet.

• Projected — a future month.

You do not post depreciation by hand. GO posts due months automatically every day (early morning), and it catches up any months that were missed — for example, if an asset's GL accounts were filled in late. For an asset to depreciate it needs five things: a Depreciation Method, an Original Cost, a Useful Life, an In-Service Date, and its Depreciation Expense + Accumulated Depreciation GL accounts.

If the accumulated depreciation on the asset ever stops matching what is actually in the GL, the detail page shows a warning banner ("Accumulated depreciation on this asset does not reconcile with its GL balance") and GO pauses further posting for that asset until it is investigated — usually a sign someone edited the GL entries directly.

Scheduling equipment on the Schedule board

Assets get scheduled onto jobs from the Schedule board. In the board's toolbar there is a Teams | Assets toggle: Teams is the familiar crew view; Assets switches the board to equipment scheduling.

In the Assets view:

1. An Assets panel lists every unit you own, with its schedule-color dot, tag, and profit center / branch. Type in the filter box to narrow the list. Every unit is always listed — assets are reusable, so scheduling one does not remove it from the panel.

2. Drag an Active asset onto a project's day to schedule it there. The stay appears as a bar tinted in the asset's schedule color. Units that are not Active are greyed out and cannot be dragged.

3. Drag a bar's edge to stretch or shrink the stay; drag the whole bar to another project row or another start day to move it.

4. Drag a bar back onto the Assets panel to unschedule it.

5. Toolbar filters let you narrow the board's rows by Projects, Profit Centers, and Branches.

Light shading behind the bars shows crew activity on each project day, so you can line up equipment with the days crews are actually on site. If a bar has a warning dot, the stay has no budget lines behind it — right-click the bar to attach it to the project so its actual costs have somewhere to land.

Disposing of an asset

When a unit is sold, traded in, totaled, or scrapped, dispose of it — do not delete it. Click Dispose on the detail page, or right-click the row and choose Dispose.

1. Enter the Disposal Date (today or earlier).

2. Enter the Disposal Proceeds — what you were paid for the unit. Enter 0 for a scrapped asset.

3. Review the preview: GO shows the unit's Net book value, the Proceeds, and the resulting Gain on disposal (green) or Loss on disposal (red), live as you type.

4. If the unit still has an open financing note, a warning tells you the remaining balance will be paid off as part of the disposal.

5. Click Dispose Asset.

In one step, GO then: posts any depreciation still due up through the disposal date, writes the disposal journal entry (removing the cost and accumulated depreciation from your books and recording the gain or loss), pays off any open note, and marks the asset Disposed. If any part of that fails, nothing is saved — you will never end up half-disposed.

Disposed assets become read-only. To see them in the list again, turn on the Include Disposed switch.

Where assets appear elsewhere

• Schedule board — the Assets view described above; see Schedule.

• Tasks — each asset's cost-collector project holds the tasks and hours charged to the machine; right-click → Go to Tasks. See Tasks.

• GL Entries — monthly depreciation and disposal entries post to the ledger; the GL Reference column links straight to them. See GL Entries & Transactions.

• Fleet dashboards and utilization reports — assets with Display in metrics turned on are included.

• Profit Centers and Branches — an asset can be assigned to both for reporting; see Profit Centers and Branches.

Permissions

Regardless of permissions, a disposed asset can no longer be edited, disposed again, or deleted.

Tips & best practices

• Dispose, don't delete. Delete is for mistakes only. A real machine that left the fleet should be disposed so its gain or loss lands on your books.

• Give every schedulable unit a Schedule color. On a busy board, color is how dispatchers tell the two skid steers apart.

• Fill in the GL accounts on day one. Depreciation cannot post without the expense and accumulated accounts — GO will quietly wait, then catch up all the missed months at once when you finally fill them in, which can be a surprise on that month's P&L.

• Keep meter readings current. The Hours and Miles columns are only as useful as your last reading — update them when units come back to the yard.

• Set the status honestly. Only Active units can be dragged onto the schedule, so marking a unit In Maintenance is how you keep dispatch from sending a dead machine to a job.

Common questions

Why can't I edit this asset? It has been disposed. Disposed assets are frozen — their history backs the gain/loss entry on your books.

Why isn't my asset depreciating? Check the Purchase & Depreciation tab for a Method, Original Cost, Useful Life, and In-Service Date, and the GL Accounts tab for the Depreciation Expense and Accumulated Depreciation accounts. All five are needed before GO will post anything.

What does the "does not reconcile with its GL balance" warning mean? The total depreciation recorded on the asset no longer matches the balance in its GL accounts — usually because a journal entry was edited or added by hand. GO pauses further automatic posting on that asset until the difference is investigated.

Why can't I drag an asset onto the Schedule board? Only assets with status Active are draggable. In Maintenance, Idle, Retired, and Disposed units are greyed out.

Where do the costs of running a machine go? To the asset's own cost-collector project. Right-click the asset and choose Go to Tasks to see it.

Related topics

• Projects — The page that hosts the Jobs | Indirect | Assets tabs.

• Schedule — The board with the Teams | Assets view toggle.

• Tasks — Where an asset's cost-collector work lives.

• GL Entries & Transactions — Where depreciation and disposal entries post.

• Chart of Accounts — The accounts referenced on the GL Accounts tab.

• Profit Centers and Branches — Reporting dimensions an asset can be assigned to.

• Proposals — The other Projects-page companion article.