Assets like equipment, vehicles and furniture lose value as they age. Parts wear out and pieces break, eventually requiring repair or replacement. Depreciation helps companies account for the ...

Daniel Liberto is a journalist with over 10 years of experience working with publications such as the Financial Times, The Independent, and Investors Chronicle. Eric's career includes extensive work ...

In accrual basis accounting, when your business purchases a long-lived asset, such as a vehicle, a building or a piece of equipment, you don't immediately write off the full cost as an expense. Rather ...

Depreciation is a calculation used to work out the value of assets over time and use. It's drawn from two essential pieces of information—how much an asset originally cost, and its "useful life." ...

Depreciation is the recovery of the cost of a physical asset, like property or equipment, over multiple years. It allows companies to spread out the cost of some expenses, reduce taxable income and ...

Computers, office chairs and factories all wear down and lose value over time. Depreciation is how accountants factor that fact into their number-crunching. A depreciated five-year-old computer isn't ...

Julia Kagan is a financial/consumer journalist and former senior editor, personal finance, of Investopedia. Lea Uradu, J.D., is a Maryland state registered tax preparer, state-certified notary public, ...