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Depreciation Schedule Calculator
Builds a full depreciation schedule for an asset under straight-line or declining balance, including the crossover to straight-line and the convention applied in the year of acquisition.
How this calculation works
- Straight-line spreads the depreciable base — cost less salvage value — evenly across the useful life.
- Declining balance applies a fixed rate to the opening net book value each period, so the expense front-loads. The rate is the straight-line rate multiplied by the declining factor, typically 150% or 200%.
- Declining balance ignores salvage value when setting the rate but never depreciates below it. The schedule stops taking expense once book value reaches salvage.
- Where the switch is enabled, the schedule moves to straight-line on the remaining depreciable base in the first period where straight-line yields the larger deduction — the crossover point.
- The first-period convention determines how much expense the year of acquisition takes: full month, half-year, or mid-month.
Conventions and edge cases
- A declining balance schedule without the switch to straight-line leaves a residual above salvage that never depreciates. That is why the switch exists, and why most fixed-asset systems apply it by default.
- This is a book depreciation schedule. MACRS tax depreciation uses prescribed tables and recovery periods and will not agree with it.
- Salvage value above cost, or a useful life of zero, produces no schedule rather than a negative one.
Frequently asked questions
- When does declining balance switch to straight-line?
- At the first period where straight-line depreciation on the remaining book value less salvage, spread over the remaining life, exceeds what the declining balance rate would take. From that period on the schedule stays on straight-line. Without the switch, declining balance approaches salvage asymptotically and never fully depreciates the asset.
- Does declining balance use salvage value?
- Not in the rate, but as a floor. The rate applies to opening net book value regardless of salvage, but the schedule stops once book value reaches salvage, so total depreciation still equals cost less salvage.
- Can I use this for tax depreciation?
- No. This produces book depreciation. MACRS uses prescribed recovery periods, conventions, and rate tables that differ from both straight-line and standard declining balance, so the two schedules will not agree.
- What does the half-year convention do?
- It takes half a period of depreciation in the year the asset is placed in service regardless of the actual in-service date, and extends the schedule by an additional half period at the end. It avoids tracking exact acquisition dates across a large asset register.