Every property you manage is filled with assets that depreciate, wear out, need replacement, and affect your financial statements. HVAC systems. Roofing. Appliances. Parking lot surfaces. Elevators. Building improvements made by tenants that revert to you when they leave.
Tracking these assets accurately isn’t optional. Your financial statements depend on it. Your tax returns require it. Your investors expect it. And your ability to plan capital expenditures intelligently demands it.
Yet many property management companies struggle with fixed asset tracking. Assets get capitalized inconsistently. Depreciation calculations live in disconnected spreadsheets. Disposal transactions get recorded months after equipment actually leaves the property. The result is financial statements that don’t reflect reality and capital planning based on incomplete information.
The Yardi Fixed Assets module exists to solve these problems. When properly implemented and maintained, it creates a single source of truth for all capitalized property assets, automates depreciation calculations, integrates seamlessly with your general ledger, and provides the reporting needed for both financial statements and tax compliance.
At ND Consulting, we’ve helped property management companies of all sizes implement and optimize Yardi Fixed Assets. Here’s what you need to know to make the module work for your organization.
Why Fixed Asset Management Matters in Property Management
Property management involves significant capital investment, and managing those investments requires systematic tracking that many organizations lack.
Financial statement accuracy depends on proper asset tracking. Your balance sheet shows the book value of capitalized assets. Your income statement includes depreciation expense. If your asset records are incomplete or inaccurate, both statements are wrong. Auditors will find the discrepancies, and investors will lose confidence.
Tax compliance requires detailed asset records. Different asset types depreciate on different schedules for tax purposes. Bonus depreciation rules change frequently. Cost segregation studies identify opportunities to accelerate depreciation. Without organized asset data, you can’t optimize your tax position or support your returns during examination.
Capital planning needs historical asset information. When will the roof need replacement? How much did similar HVAC installations cost at other properties? What’s the typical lifespan of the elevators in your portfolio? These questions require asset history that most organizations can’t access because their records are scattered across spreadsheets, invoices, and institutional memory.
Property transactions require asset documentation. When you sell a property, buyers conduct due diligence that includes asset condition assessments. When you refinance, lenders want to understand what capital has been invested. Clean asset records facilitate these transactions and support valuations.
What Yardi Fixed Assets Actually Does
The Yardi Fixed Assets module provides comprehensive asset lifecycle management from acquisition through disposal.
Asset acquisition tracking captures the essential information when you add new assets. This includes cost, acquisition date, useful life, depreciation method, property assignment, and category classification. The system supports multiple acquisition methods including purchase, capital lease, and construction in progress conversion.
Depreciation calculation runs automatically based on your configured parameters. The system supports multiple depreciation methods including straight-line, declining balance, sum-of-years-digits, and units of production. You can maintain separate books for financial reporting (GAAP), tax reporting (federal and state), and management reporting (AMT) with different methods and lives for each.
Asset transfers handle the common scenario of moving equipment between properties. When an appliance moves from one unit to another or surplus equipment transfers to a different location, the system maintains the asset’s history while updating its current assignment.
Disposal processing handles asset retirement through sale, abandonment, or write-off. The system calculates gain or loss based on book value versus proceeds and generates the appropriate journal entries.
Reporting capabilities include standard asset registers, depreciation schedules, book-to-tax reconciliations, and rollforward reports that auditors love. Yardi Custom reports can address specific owner or investor requirements.
Implementation Essentials: Getting Fixed Assets Right from the Start
Successful Fixed Assets implementation requires careful planning and clean data. Here’s how we approach implementations at ND Consulting.
Capitalization policy definition comes first. What dollar threshold triggers capitalization versus expensing? How do you handle repairs versus improvements? What asset categories will you use? These policy decisions drive system configuration and must be documented before setup begins.
Historical asset data conversion is often the most challenging aspect of implementation. You need to gather asset information from prior systems, spreadsheets, depreciation schedules from your tax preparer, and sometimes physical inventory. Data quality varies enormously, and cleaning it takes time.
GL account mapping ensures depreciation expense and accumulated depreciation post to the correct accounts by asset type and property. This mapping connects Fixed Assets to your financial reporting structure.
Workflow configuration establishes who can add assets, approve disposals, run depreciation, and access reports. These controls protect data integrity and support audit requirements.
Reconciliation processes verify that the asset subledger ties to general ledger control accounts. Implementing strong reconciliation from day one prevents the divergence that plagues many organizations.
Common Fixed Assets Challenges and Solutions
Even well-implemented Fixed Assets modules encounter ongoing challenges. Here are the issues we see most frequently and how to address them.
Inconsistent capitalization happens when different team members apply different thresholds or categorizations. The solution is clear policy documentation, training, and periodic audits of recent additions to catch and correct errors early.
Disposal lag occurs when physical assets leave properties but system records aren’t updated. Monthly reconciliation of asset additions and disposals to capital expenditure reports and maintenance records catches these gaps.
Book-tax differences accumulate complexity when organizations maintain multiple depreciation books. Regular reconciliation between books and clear documentation of the sources of differences keeps things manageable.
Cost segregation integration challenges arise when studies identify assets to be reclassified for accelerated tax depreciation. The system can handle these adjustments, but the process requires careful attention to avoid errors.
How ND Consulting Helps with Fixed Assets
Our Fixed Assets practice covers the full spectrum of needs from initial implementation to ongoing optimization.
New implementations benefit from our structured methodology that addresses policy, data, configuration, and training comprehensively. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t across dozens of implementations.
Module optimization helps organizations that implemented Fixed Assets but aren’t getting full value. We assess current state, identify gaps, and implement improvements ranging from workflow refinement to reporting enhancement.
Conversion projects bring organizations from spreadsheets or other systems into Yardi Fixed Assets. Our data migration expertise ensures accurate conversion with full historical detail.
Ongoing support through our help desk answers the day-to-day questions that keep your Fixed Assets module running smoothly.
Frequently Asked Questions About Yardi Fixed Assets
Can Yardi Fixed Assets handle multiple depreciation books?
Yes. The system supports separate books for GAAP, federal tax, state tax, and AMT with different methods and useful lives for each. This is essential for organizations that need accurate financial statements while optimizing tax positions.
How do we handle assets that were previously tracked in spreadsheets?
Historical assets can be converted into Yardi Fixed Assets. The process involves cleaning and formatting your existing data, mapping it to Yardi’s structure, importing it, and validating the results. ND Consulting has extensive experience with these conversions.
Does Fixed Assets integrate with Yardi accounts payable?
Yes. Capital expenditures processed through accounts payable can flow directly to Fixed Assets, reducing duplicate entry and ensuring consistency between asset records and payment history.
Get Your Fixed Assets Under Control
Accurate fixed asset tracking isn’t just an accounting requirement—it’s a foundation for sound financial management and capital planning. ND Consulting’s Fixed Assets expertise helps you build that foundation.
Contact us at 404-590-8547 or info@ndconsultingllc.com to discuss your fixed asset management needs.
