Your Depreciation Numbers Are Probably Wrong

If your software calculates depreciation monthly, it's rounding — and the rounding compounds across your portfolio year over year. This page shows the math.

Monthly Depreciation Is an Estimate — Off by Up to 15 Days per Asset

Most fixed asset tools treat depreciation as a monthly event. An asset acquired on March 15 gets rounded to March 1 or April 1 — 15 days of error on a single asset, in a single period. The next section puts a dollar figure on it.

01

Every mid-month acquisition is wrong

Tools that calculate monthly can only start depreciation on a month boundary. Assets acquired mid-month are rounded forward or backward. The exact acquisition date — the date you actually put the asset into service — is ignored.

02

The error compounds across your portfolio

One asset with a 15-day rounding error is a rounding error. Two hundred assets, each acquired mid-month, each with different rounding directions — that's thousands of dollars of accumulated error sitting in your depreciation schedules.

03

You can't report for arbitrary dates

Need depreciation as of March 17 for a mid-quarter review? A bank reporting package? An insurance appraisal? Monthly tools only know month-end boundaries. They can't give you a number for any date that isn't the last day of a month.

$727.99 off. Per asset. Per year.

Same asset. Same rate. Same period. Two different approaches to counting days produce two different numbers. Here's the math.

Asset acquired March 15. Report period ends December 31. The monthly method estimates 10 months. The daily method counts 291 actual days.

Now multiply that discrepancy across 200 assets over 5 years. The accumulated error in your depreciation schedules is not a rounding issue — it's a material misstatement.

Monthly Method

Most Fixed Asset Software

Asset cost: $100,000

Rate: 20% declining balance

Acquisition: March 15

Period end: December 31

Months rounded: 10

Method: declining balance, compounded monthly

$15,470.63
faManager — Daily

Exact Day Count

Asset cost: $100,000

Rate: 20% declining balance

Acquisition: March 15

Period end: December 31

Actual days: 291

Calculated daily, each day's NBV

$14,742.64
$727.99
difference per asset, in the first year alone — before compounding

What Daily Calculation Actually Changes

Beyond the totals themselves, daily calculation determines which report dates are even possible. The table shows where monthly tools hit their limits.

Capability Monthly Tools faManager
Calculation precision Rounded to nearest month Exact day count
Mid-month acquisitions Rounded forward or back Calculated from actual date
Report for any date Month-end only Any date, any period
Arbitrary period reporting Calendar boundaries only Start and end any day
Journal entry timing Month-end batches Any period you define
Accumulated error over 5 years Compounds annually Zero — exact from day one
Disposal precision Rounded to month of disposal Exact depreciation to disposal date
Canadian maple leaf

Built and Hosted in Canada

Most fixed asset software was designed for US accounting rules and hosted on US servers. faManager was built in Canada, from the ground up, for Canadian businesses.

Data Stays in Canada

Your fixed asset data is hosted on Canadian servers and never crosses the border, so PIPEDA applies to it end to end.

Canadian Support

Support comes from the same team in Brandon, Manitoba that builds the product. Email is answered by a person, usually within one business day.

All Pricing in CAD

Every tier and every invoice is in Canadian dollars, so your costs don't move with the exchange rate.

faManager wasn't adapted from a US product. Cloudtric built it in Brandon, Manitoba, around Canadian fiscal year conventions and CRA requirements, for Canadian businesses from the start.

Spreadsheets, Traditional Software, and faManager

Three approaches to fixed asset management. The differences go beyond depreciation precision.

Spreadsheets
Traditional Software
faManager
Depreciation accuracy Manual formulas, error-prone Monthly rounding Daily precision
Setup time Hours of formula building Days of configuration Minutes
Report flexibility Whatever you build Month, quarter, year only Any date range
Multi-company Separate files per entity Extra licenses Built-in, one subscription
Audit trail None Basic logs Every action logged
Journal entries Manual, every period Monthly batches only Any period, auto-generated
Canadian hosting Depends on your setup Usually US servers Always in Canada
Starting cost "Free" — your time $1,500+/year $0/month free tier

Small Businesses, Growing Companies, and Accounting Firms

Small Businesses

You bought equipment. You need to track it for your books and CRA. You don't want to spend three hours a month on depreciation formulas in a spreadsheet that one typo can break.

faManager handles the math. You put in the asset. It gives you the depreciation schedule, the journal entry, and the report — exact to the day you acquired it.

  • Set up in minutes, not days
  • No accounting background required
  • Free tier for small portfolios

Growing Companies

Multiple entities, hundreds of assets, several users with different roles. You need real-time net book value, period reports that match your GL, and journal entries you can post without manual adjustment.

Monthly rounding that was invisible with 20 assets becomes a material issue at 200 — variance your auditors will ask you to explain.

  • Multi-company, one subscription
  • Role-based access control
  • Full audit trail, every action

Accounting Firms

You manage fixed assets for multiple clients. You need to run reports across all of them, generate journal entries on your client's fiscal year end, and hand over schedules that don't require you to explain why the numbers don't match the underlying data.

faManager's firm tier gives you a multi-client dashboard, per-client access control, and daily depreciation precision — without paying per-seat for every staff member.

  • Multi-client dashboard
  • Staff assignment with role control
  • Simple per-client monthly billing

See the Difference for Yourself

Try our free depreciation calculator — enter your own numbers and see how daily precision compares to monthly estimates. No account required.

Free plan available. No credit card required. Canadian data residency.