What Are Plant Assets? The Motley Fool

It is the efficient use of these resources that in many cases determines the amount of profit corporations will earn. Since these assets produce benefits for more than one year, they are capitalized and reported on the balance sheet as a long-term asset. This means when a piece of equipment is purchased an expense isn’t immediately recorded. Any land maintenance, improvement, renovations, or construction to increase building operations or revenue generation capacity are also recorded as part of the plant assets.

In the balance sheet of the business entity, these assets are recorded under the head of non-current assets as Plant, property, and equipment. Inventory is an asset which consists of raw materials used to manufacture the goods and already manufactured goods that are available for sale. It includes all component parts or raw materials a company consumes either in production or sells.

What Does Plant Asset Mean?

Any asset that will provide an economic benefit within one year is a current asset. Plants are considered a “current asset” because PP&E has a useful life longer than one year. A plant is a physical object that can be used to produce a product or service.

  • Monte Garments is a factory that manufactures different types of readymade garments.
  • From there, companies within an industry can often be easily compared.
  • Functional depreciation is caused by obsolescence factors such as technological advances and less demand for a particular product or service.
  • Although PP&E are noncurrent assets or long-term assets, not all noncurrent assets are property, plant, and equipment.

Later on, the company will charge the depreciation according to the method of depreciation it usually follows. 18,000 USD must be charged to the plant asset account for every financial year as a depreciation expense. As we continue to walk our way down the balance sheet, we come to noncurrent assets, the first and most significant of which is PP&E. At almost $23 billion, PP&E composes almost half of the total assets of $51 billion. PP&E may be liquidated when they are no longer of use or when a company is experiencing financial difficulties. Of course, selling property, plant, and equipment to fund business operations is a signal that a company might be in financial trouble.

Let’s skim through the concept of depreciation for the plant assets. Depreciation is the periodic allocation of an asset’s value(cost) over its useful life. The basic principle working behind the depreciation of assets is the matching principle. The matching principle states that expenses should be recorded in the same financial year when the revenue was generated against them. As the fixed assets last longer, the expenses are divided over the item until they’re useful.

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The Sum of Years’ Digits depreciation method divided the depreciation expenses every year by a fraction based on the number of remaining years. Buildings are structures like factories, offices, warehouses, and other places where businesses produce goods or provide services. Some fixed assets’ fair values can be extremely variable, needing revaluations as often as once a year. Revaluations every three to five years are permissible in most other circumstances, according to IFRS. In any case, owing to price and duration, property held by a company is generally the most valuable asset.

Presentation of Plant Assets

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In business, assets can take several forms — equipment, patents, investments, and even cash itself. Here’s a rundown of the different types of assets a business can possess, and the type of assets that are considered to be plant assets. Plant assets are usually expensive, long-term investments made to underpin a company’s production process. Needless to say, they’re an enormously important part of producing goods and/or services in an economically efficient manner. Businesses must be especially careful in making these investments since buildings and land are immovable and can’t be easily substituted.

The later years are charged a lower sum of depreciation based on the assumption that lower revenue is generated. The depreciation expense in this method is calculated by subtracting the residual value of an asset from the cost and dividing the remainder by a number of years(useful life). The straight-line method’s illustration has been given in the above example. There are different methods of depreciation that a business entity can use.

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While they’re most definitely both considered part of the asset category, current assets and plant assets don’t share all that much in common. A plant asset is an asset with a useful life of more than one year that is used in producing revenues in a business’s operations. Liquidity is also a difference between inventory and plant assets. Plant assets are illiquid because they cannot be easily converted into cash when needed. Because companies expect to convert their inventory into cash within a year. But compared to other liquid assets such as cash and cash equivalents, inventory is less liquid.

Property, plant, and equipment are tangible assets, meaning they are physical in nature or can be touched; as a result, they are not easily converted into cash. The overall value of a company’s PP&E can range from very low to extremely high compared to its total assets. Plant assets and the related accumulated depreciation are reported on a company’s balance sheet in the noncurrent asset section entitled property, plant and equipment. Accounting rules also require that the plant assets be reviewed for possible impairment losses. Companies need to own a variety of assets to generate sales and profits.

It also covers the various methods of depreciation, why each method is used, and the “rate of return” expected by an organization when they purchase an asset. You should be able to explain fair market value, acquisition costs, historical costs, and which costs are capitalized. This chapter addresses the reality that all assets with the exception of land have a useful life. A business should expect some wear and tear on assets as a direct result of using them to support business activity. Depreciation is an allocation process that ensures the useful life of an asset is properly identified from accounting and company valuation. Although PP&E are noncurrent assets or long-term assets, not all noncurrent assets are property, plant, and equipment.

Plant assets are physical resources that companies own for more than a year and use to create & sell goods/services to generate income. These are fixed assets such as land, buildings, a detailed breakdown of nonprofit accounting basics factories, machinery, and vehicles. Plant assets, also known as fixed assets, are any asset directly involved in revenue generation with a useful life greater than one year.

Plant assets are deprecated over their useful lives using the straight line or double declining depreciation methods. Monte Garments is a factory that manufactures different types of readymade garments. The company also has a printing press for printing customized merchandise with brand designs. A new press technology has just launched in the market, and the company owner decided to acquire the machine. The cost of the machine is USD100,000, and it is expected to stay useful for five years with a residual value of USD10,000.

For instance, a car that has been sitting in a garage for 20 years may be sold for $10,000, but the new owner will not be able to drive it because it is too old. You can, however, sell your land at a higher price and still get the same amount of money back as you would have received if it had been sold at its original price. For example, a new plant may be valued at $100,000, but if it is expected to last 10 years, it may cost $1 million to build and maintain. A plant with a 10-year life may have a value between $10 million and $20 million, depending on how long it will be used and how much maintenance is required to keep it in good working order. The below table shows the different depreciation calculations over 7 years of useful life using four different methods. The Straight-Line method depreciates an equal amount of $50,000 from the opening value each year for 7 years until the asset’s value reaches the salvage value of $50,000.

It is important to note that regardless of the reason why a company has sold some of its property, plant, or equipment, it’s likely the company didn’t realize a profit from the sale. Companies can also borrow off their PP&E, (floating lien), meaning the equipment can be used as collateral for a loan. Plant assets are reported within the property, plant, and equipment line item on the reporting entity’s balance sheet, where it is grouped within the long-term assets section.

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