Purchase Order for Fixed Assets

A fixed asset has a useful life that spans multiple reporting periods, and whose price exceeds a specific minimum limit (known as capitalization limit). There are several accounting negotiations to record for fixed assets, which are:

• Initial recordation. On the assumption that the Asset sold on credit, the initial entry is a credit to accounts receivable and a debit to the applicable fixed asset account for the Asset’s cost. An asset’s value can include any associated freight charges, sales taxes, installation fees, testing fees, and so forth. There may be several fixed asset accounts, such as: 
  • Apartments
  • Furniture and fixtures
  • Land
  • Machinery and equipment
  • Office equipment
  • Vehicles
• Depreciation. The amount of this Asset is slowly reduced over time with ongoing depreciation entries. There are several variations in the depreciation calculation. The most common practice is the straight-line method, where the estimated salvage value is subtracted from the cost. The other quantity is separated by the number of remaining months in the useful life of the Asset. This yields a monthly devaluation charge, for which the access is a debit to depreciation expense and a credit to solved depreciation. The balance in the collected depreciation account is paired with the fixed asset account amount, resulting in a reduced capital balance.
• Disposal. At long last of a fixed asset’s useful life, it is sold out or remained. The entry is to debit the collected depreciation account for the amount of all depreciation charges fee to date and credit the fixed asset account to flush out the balance linked with that Asset. If the Asset was sold out, then also debit the cash account for the amount of cash that was obtained. Any remaining amount needed to balance this entry is then registered as a gain or loss on Asset’s sale.

Fixed assets are obsolescent assets, meaning the assets have a useful life of more than one year. Fixed assets include property, plant, and real estate(PP&E) and are registered on the balance sheet. Fixed assets are also called as tangible assets, meaning they’re physical assets. 

Fixed assets are not merely liquid and cannot be readily transformed into cash. They are not sold out or consumed by a company. Instead, the Asset is used to make goods and services.

Fixed tangible assets can be evaluated over time to minimize the recorded cost of the Asset. Most tangible assets, such as properties, machinery, and equipment, can be depreciated. However, land cannot be devalued because it cannot be depleted over time if it is not a land involving natural resources.

Examples

An example of a company’s fixed Asset would be a company that produces and sells toys. The company buys a new office building for $5 million and machinery and equipment that costs a total of $500,000. So, the company projects using construction, machinery, and equipment for the next five years. These assets are considered as fixed tangible assets since they have a physical form, will have a useful life of over a year time, and will be used to generate revenue for the company.

A purchase order (PO) is a financial record and first legal offer issued by a buyer to a seller showing types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services. It is mostly used to operate the purchasing of products and services from external suppliers. Purchase orders can be an integral part of an enterprise resource planning system orders.

Indent is a purchase order basically placed by an agent (indent agent) under specified conditions of sale.

The matter of a purchase order does not itself form a contract. If no prior agreement exists, then it is the approval of the order by the seller that makes a contract between the customer and seller.

Companies use purchase orders for a considerable number of purposes. Purchase orders let buyers clearly and explicitly deliver their intentions to sellers. They may also assist a purchasing agent in managing incoming requests and pending orders. POs also protect sellers in case a buyer refuses to pay for goods or services. Purchase orders supply benefits in that they streamline the purchasing process to a standard method. Commercial lenders or financial institutions might provide financial assistance based on purchase orders. There are different trade finance facilities that almost every financial institution lets business people utilize against purchase orders such as:

1. In advance of shipment credit facility
2. Post shipment credit facility
3. Trade finance facility
4. Foreign bill purchase credit facility
5. Bill retirement credit facility
6. Order confirmation
7. Followup

The purpose of purchase orders is to procure materials for direct consumption or stock, procure services, cover customer requirements using external resources, or procure a material that is needed in plants from an internal source (long-distance intra-plant stock transfers). They may also place once-only procurement transactions and optimize purchasing by taking full advantage of negotiated conditions or for optimal utilization of existing transport capacities.

Creating a purchase order is typically the first step of the purchase to pay process in an ERP system. Purchase orders may require an SKU code. Within an ERP system, a purchase order can be created manually and may require confirmation or changes via editing. Within an ERP system (such as in SAP), manually creating a purchase order within the system may look something like “Logistics -> Materials Management -> Purchasing -> Purchasing Order -> Create” and providing a Transaction Code. This document form will be chosen from the screen. A vendor code lookup might need to be selected for a purchase order steps, as well as things like organization group and company code.

What happens once a purchase order is issued?

Once a purchase order has been created and conveyed to a seller, the seller then decides whether to accept the contract or not.

If the purchase order is accepted, in that case, the seller has approved to sell out the products and quantities at the prices set forth by the customer. The seller then points an invoice to the buyer depending on the purchase order.

For example:

Ann’s company needs to buy new materials from a supplier to create their products. The company then makes a purchase order to indicate to the supplier from which they want to order materials.

The supplier approves the purchase order and sends the materials to Ann’s company along with an invoice. When Ann’s company receives the goods and the invoice, they compare them to the purchase order. If the documents and products match, Ann’s company pays the invoice.

Why use purchase orders for fixed assets?

While they might seem like a sophisticated way to go about ordering materials from suppliers, purchase orders are used to serve for an extra level of fraud prevention and to secure documents at desired prices.

Many organizations don’t use purchase orders. After all, they feel like the paperwork is just a roadblock or unnecessary step in the process because they have stable working relationships with vendors. When small businesses are in the startup stage, they pretend to have a reasonably organic purchasing process that’s very simple and straightforward. Yet, as the company grows, and more hands are involved from start to finish, the process varies as the relationships with vendors develop and evolve with time.

At a certain point in company development, purchasing demands become more complicated, urgent, or specific, meaning communication can become hard and leave a lot of room for error if purchase orders are not used, or lack a certain level of detail.

If a customer obtains their order without a PO number for reference, it can be tough to figure out where the request went wrong. And at this point, both an invoice and payment were likely sent – adding more complexity to the legal position between the two sides.

The purchase order takes place as a legally binding document, stating clear instructions to the vendor and an audit trail that’s accessible for reference when things go wrong.