Depreciation Profiles

A depreciation profile specifies how the depreciation of a capital asset should be calculated. The depreciation profile should be included in the request when creating or updating the entity which relates to the purchase of the asset. The depreciation profile will be included in the response when fetching a capital asset.

The entities which can relate to the purchase of a capital asset are:

• bank transaction explanations
• bill items
• expenses

The depreciation profile should be nested inside a capital asset namespace and have the following structure:

"capital_asset": {
  "depreciation_profile": {
    "method": "straight_line",
    "asset_life_years": 12,
    "frequency": "annually"
  }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<freeagent>
  <capital_asset>
    <depreciation_profile>
      <method>straight_line</method>
      <asset_life_years>12</asset_life_years>
      <frequency>annually</frequency>
    </depreciation_profile>
  </capital_asset>
</freeagent>

The following example shows the request to create an expense which relates to the purchase of a capital asset which should depreciate using the straight line method, with an asset life of 10 years.

{
    "expense": {
        "user": "https://api.freeagent.com/v2/users/1",
        "category": "https://api.freeagent.com/v2/categories/602-1",
        "dated_on": "2024-02-01",
        "currency": "GBP",
        "gross_value": "-20000.0",
        "description": "An example capital asset expense",
        "capital_asset": {
            "depreciation_profile": {
                "method": "straight_line",
                "asset_life_years": 10,
                "frequency": "annually"
            }
        }
    }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<freeagent>
  <expense>
    <user>https://api.freeagent.com/v2/users/116</user>
    <category>https://api.freeagent.com/v2/categories/602-1</category>
    <dated_on>2024-02-01</dated_on>
    <currency>GBP</currency>
    <gross_value>-20000.0</gross_value>
    <description>An example capital asset expense</description>
    <capital_asset>
      <depreciation_profile>
        <method>straight_line</method>
        <asset_life_years>10</asset_life_years>
        <frequency>annually</frequency>
      </depreciation_profile>
    </capital_asset>
  </expense>
</freeagent>

Valid Depreciation Methods

FreeAgent supports the following depreciation methods in the following format:

• straight_line
• reducing_balance
• no_depreciation

Valid Depreciation Frequencies

The frequency refers to how often depreciation ledgers are posted. The following frequencies are valid:

• monthly
• annually

If no frequency is provided, the depreciation will default to monthly posting.

Depreciation Method Specific Parameters

Each depreciation method has different parameters required to specify how depreciation should be calculated. In each case, all of the parameters are required in addition to the method parameter, with the exception of frequency.

Straight Line Depreciation

Reducing Balance Depreciation

No Depreciation

No additional parameters are required for no depreciation.

Update Requests

Entities relating to assets created using the deprecated depreciation schedule field will be able to be updated using either deprecation_schedule or a depreciation_profile.

Assets created using a depreciation_profile will only be updatable using a depreciation_profile.

Attempting to update an asset with a depreciation schedule when the asset is using a depreciation profile will result in the following error response.

Status: 422 Unprocessable Entity

{
    "errors": {
        "error": {
            "message": "`depreciation_schedule` is deprecated, use `depreciation_profile` instead"
        }
    }
}

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<freeagent>
  <errors>
    <error>
      <message>
        `depreciation_schedule` is deprecated, use `depreciation_profile` instead
      </message>
    </error>
  </errors>
</freeagent>