A fixed asset register that survives an audit
How Cambodian SMEs and NGOs track asset custody, depreciation, impairment, and disposal — and prove who held what, and when.
A register is a custody record before it is a finance record
Most organisations build an asset list for depreciation and discover, at the first audit, that the question actually asked is different: who has this laptop, since when, and what happened to the one before it. A register that answers only the accounting question fails the audit that matters.
What an auditor actually asks for
- The purchase that created the asset, not a manually typed cost
- Who holds it now, and the full chain of holders before them
- For donor-funded assets: which donor, under which grant
- Depreciation charged per period, tied to the accounts
- Disposal evidence: what happened to it, and who authorised that
The life of one asset
Each stage below writes to the same record. That is the whole point — a laptop, its holder, its depreciation, and its disposal are not four separate spreadsheets.
- 1Humaneti
The asset is created from the purchase that bought it
Cost comes from the purchase order, not from someone re-typing it, so the register cannot disagree with procurement. Where the purchase was donor-funded, the donor and grant are stamped on the asset for restitution reporting.
- 2Administrator
Its category decides how it depreciates
Category carries the method and the useful life, so a vehicle and a laptop are not depreciated by whoever happens to open the record. Set the categories once and every asset added later inherits the treatment.
- 3ManagerAssigned
Assign it to a person or a place
An assignment is a record with a start, not a field that gets overwritten. Handing the laptop to somebody else closes the first assignment and opens a second, so the chain of custody stays readable years later.
- 4EmployeeReturned
Return and transfer keep their own history
Returning an asset does not erase who had it — the closed assignment stays. A transfer between staff or sites goes through a request so a device does not quietly move between departments.
- 5Humaneti
Depreciation runs per period and posts to the accounts
The charge is calculated from the asset's own cost, date, and category, and lands in the ledger rather than in a separate schedule that has to be reconciled to it.
- 6Finance
Impairment when the value is genuinely gone
A damaged or obsolete asset is written down as its own recorded event with its own posting, rather than by editing the cost — which would quietly rewrite every period that came before.
- 7FinanceDisposed
Disposal records the outcome, not just the removal
Sold, scrapped, or donated — each carries its proceeds and the resulting gain or loss to the accounts. For donor-funded assets this is the moment the restitution question gets answered from the record instead of from memory.
- 8HR / Payroll
And exit clearance reads the same register
When somebody leaves, what is still assigned to them comes from the register automatically. The alternative — asking their manager to remember — is how organisations lose equipment quietly for years.