Fixed Asset Register Requirements: US GAAP, IFRS and UK FRS 102

No accounting standard publishes a form called 'the fixed asset register'. What the standards do publish is a list of numbers your financial statements must disclose about property, plant and equipment, and a set of rules for how those numbers are calculated. The register is the record that lets you produce them, asset by asset, and defend them when someone asks.

So the requirements for the register are indirect. If a disclosure or a tax calculation needs a value, the register needs the field that produces it. This guide works backwards from the requirements of US GAAP, IFRS and UK GAAP to the fields, the depreciation logic and the reconciliation routine that follow from them. If you want the basics first, start with what a fixed asset register is.

What the three frameworks require

US companies report property, plant and equipment under ASC 360. Most listed groups outside the US use IAS 16. UK and Irish companies that do not use full IFRS mostly report under FRS 102, whose Section 17 covers property, plant and equipment. The three overlap heavily. They part company on what gets reviewed each year, on when impairment is tested and on what the notes must reconcile, which happen to be the parts a register has to support.

US GAAP: ASC 360

PwC's financial statement presentation guide summarises what ASC 360-10-50-1 requires you to disclose: depreciation expense for the period, the balances of major classes of depreciable assets by nature or function, accumulated depreciation by class or in total, and a general description of the depreciation methods used. Each of those numbers is a sum of register lines. So each register line needs a class, a cost, a method and an accumulated depreciation figure.

Impairment under ASC 360 is event-driven. Held-and-used assets are tested only when events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount may not be recoverable, and the first step compares carrying amount with undiscounted cash flows, as PwC's property, plant and equipment guide explains. Two of the listed indicators are an adverse change in an asset's physical condition and an expectation that it will be disposed of well before the end of its useful life. The people who handle the equipment notice both long before finance does, which is a good argument for recording condition on the register.

IFRS: IAS 16

IAS 16 recognises an item as an asset only if future economic benefits are probable and its cost can be measured reliably, per the IFRS Foundation's summary of IAS 16. After recognition, the entity chooses the cost model or the revaluation model for each class. Under either, the residual value, useful life and depreciation method are reviewed annually at the reporting date, significant parts are depreciated separately, and the notes include a reconciliation of carrying amount from the start to the end of the period, showing additions, disposals, depreciation, impairment and other movements, as BDO's IAS 16 at a glance sets out.

That reconciliation is the most useful single test of a register. If you cannot produce a roll-forward from last year's closing balance to this year's, line by line, the register is not doing its job.

UK GAAP: FRS 102 Section 17

The September 2024 edition of FRS 102 requires an entity to allocate the depreciable amount on a systematic basis over useful life (17.18), to depreciate major components separately where their consumption patterns differ significantly (17.16), and to review residual value, useful life and method when indicators such as changed use, unexpected wear and tear or technological advancement suggest a change (17.19). Depreciation does not stop when an asset is idle or retired from active use unless it is fully depreciated (17.20). That last rule catches registers that quietly drop 'spare' equipment.

Section 17.31 requires, for each class, the measurement bases, methods, useful lives or rates, gross carrying amount and accumulated depreciation at the start and end of the period, and a reconciliation showing additions, disposals, revaluations, impairment, depreciation and other changes. Under Section 27, the entity also has to assess at each reporting date whether there is any indication that an asset may be impaired. The FRC's FRS 102 page notes that some amendments from the 2024 periodic review were not yet mandatory when that edition was published, so check which edition applies to your period.

Capitalisation thresholds and the IRS de minimis safe harbor

None of the three frameworks names a dollar or pound figure below which equipment is expensed. The threshold is an accounting policy you set and judge against materiality. US federal grant rules make the same assumption: 2 CFR 200.1 defines equipment as tangible property with a useful life of more than one year and a per-unit cost at or above the lesser of the recipient's own capitalisation level for financial statements or $10,000.

US tax works differently. The Internal Revenue Service lets you align your tax treatment with your book policy, up to a ceiling. Under the de minimis safe harbor in Treas. Reg. 1.263(a)-1(f), a taxpayer with an applicable financial statement (AFS), such as audited accounts, can deduct amounts up to $5,000 per invoice or per item. One without an AFS can deduct up to $2,500, as the IRS guidance on the tangible property regulations confirms. The regulation itself still says $500 for non-AFS taxpayers 'or other amount as identified in published guidance'; Notice 2015-82 raised that figure to $2,500 for tax years beginning on or after 1 January 2016.

• With an AFS: the accounting procedures for expensing must be in writing.
• Without an AFS: written procedures are not required, but you must expense the amounts on your books under a consistent policy that existed at the start of the tax year.
• The election: attach a statement titled 'Section 1.263(a)-1(f) de minimis safe harbor election' to a timely filed original return for each year you use it.

Setting your book capitalisation threshold at the safe harbor amount keeps book and tax in step for small items. Nothing obliges you to do it. Either way, the register should record the threshold in force when each asset was added.

Expensed items still need tracking if they leave the building with people. A $1,800 laptop below your threshold is not on the fixed asset register, but it is still a device holding company data.

Depreciation: why you usually need a book register and a tax register

Book depreciation follows the accounting framework, using a method that reflects how the asset is used up over a useful life you estimate. FRS 102 paragraph 17.22 lists the options most registers support: straight-line, diminishing balance, and usage methods such as units of production.

US tax depreciation follows MACRS, which ignores your estimates. IRS Publication 946 assigns property to classes: computers and peripheral equipment and office machinery fall in 5-year property, and office furniture and fixtures such as desks, files and safes fall in 7-year property. The general depreciation system uses the 200% declining balance method, switching to straight line, with a half-year convention, unless more than 40% of the year's depreciable basis was placed in service in the last three months, in which case the mid-quarter convention applies.

On top of MACRS sit two first-year deductions. For tax years beginning in 2026, the section 179 deduction is capped at $2,560,000, reduced by the amount by which qualifying property placed in service exceeds $4,090,000 (Rev. Proc. 2025-32; the 2025 figures were $2,500,000 and $4,000,000). And the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reinstated a 100% special depreciation allowance for certain qualified property acquired and placed in service after 19 January 2025, with an election to take 40% instead in the first tax year ending after that date. Both figures are from IRS Publication 946.

Worked example: one purchase, three depreciation answers

Worked example (hypothetical). A US company places $12,000 of computer equipment in service in 2025. Its book policy is straight-line over four years with no residual value. For tax it is 5-year MACRS property. The MACRS percentages are from Table A-1 in Publication 946 (5-year, half-year convention).

The total is identical in every column. The timing is not, and the register has to know which basis each figure belongs to, or the deferred tax calculation and the tax return will both be wrong. You can try the book side for your own numbers with the depreciation calculator.

UK: capital allowances replace depreciation for tax

HMRC does not allow accounting depreciation as a tax deduction; capital allowances take its place. The Annual Investment Allowance gives a 100% deduction on most plant and machinery up to £1 million a year, a level in place since 1 January 2019, and excludes cars. Companies within the charge to Corporation Tax can also claim full expensing, 100% of the cost of new main-rate plant and machinery other than cars, for expenditure after 1 April 2023, per HMRC's HS252 helpsheet.

Two changes from Budget 2025 affect registers being set up now. A new 40% first-year allowance applies to main-rate expenditure from 1 January 2026, including for unincorporated businesses and leasing, but excludes cars and second-hand assets. And the main-pool writing-down allowance fell from 18% to 14% from 1 April 2026 for Corporation Tax and 6 April 2026 for Income Tax, as set out in the HMRC policy paper. When you sell an asset on which allowances were claimed, the proceeds come off the pool and can create a balancing charge, so the register needs disposal proceeds, not just disposal dates.

The fields a compliant register needs

The table below maps each field to the requirement that makes it necessary. For organisations spending US federal grant money, 2 CFR 200.313(d) is the most explicit list anywhere: description, serial or other identification number, funding source, title holder, acquisition date, cost, federal share, location, use and condition, and disposition data including date and sale price.

Our fixed asset register template has these columns if you are starting from a spreadsheet.

Impairment, disposals and write-offs

FRS 102 paragraph 17.27 says an asset is derecognised on disposal or when no future economic benefits are expected from its use or disposal. The gain or loss is the difference between net disposal proceeds and carrying amount (17.30) and goes through profit or loss, not revenue (17.28). The minimum disposal record follows from that: the date, how it left (sale, scrap, donation, loss, theft), the proceeds, the carrying amount at that date and the resulting gain or loss.

The evidence has to outlive the asset. The IRS says to keep records relating to property until the period of limitations expires for the year in which you dispose of it, which for a long-lived asset can mean decades of records. UK limited companies must keep accounting records, including details of assets owned, for six years from the end of the financial year they relate to, or longer in some circumstances (GOV.UK).

Give lost and stolen assets their own status instead of quietly deleting them. For federally funded equipment, 2 CFR 200.313(d)(3) requires that any loss, damage or theft be investigated. Even where no rule says so, a write-off with no record of when and where the asset was last seen tells the next auditor nothing.

How often to reconcile the register to the general ledger

No standard sets a frequency for the register-to-ledger check. The standards set the output instead, a year-end roll-forward by class that agrees to the ledger. The only frequency that keeps that roll-forward cheap is monthly, at close. Total cost and accumulated depreciation per class in the register should equal the matching ledger accounts, and any difference should be explained by a dated item before the period is locked. Leave it to year end and twelve small differences become one large mystery.

Reconciling to the ledger proves the register adds up. Whether the assets exist is a separate question, and only a physical count answers it. US federal grant recipients must count and reconcile at least once every two years under 2 CFR 200.313(d)(2); for everyone else it is a matter of policy and auditor expectation. Our guide to physical verification of fixed assets covers how to run one.

SOX 404: why the register matters more for US public companies

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires management of SEC-reporting companies to report on internal control over financial reporting. The SEC's definition, in Release 33-8238, includes controls that provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of the registrant's assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements. For that part of the definition, a fixed asset register with custody and verification records is direct evidence.

Not every public company needs an auditor to attest to those controls. The SEC's 2020 announcement excluded smaller reporting companies with less than $100 million in annual revenue from the accelerated filer definitions, so they no longer need a separate auditor attestation of ICFR, though officer certifications still apply. For companies in scope, I'd expect the controls around fixed assets to come down to a small set of repeatable checks: additions approved and capitalised correctly, disposals recorded promptly, depreciation calculated by the system rather than by hand, and the register reconciled to the ledger each period.

Where software fits

Your general ledger stays the book of record, and dedicated tax fixed-asset software or your tax adviser handles MACRS and capital allowance pools. The gap is usually the operational half. Who holds each asset, where it is, what condition it is in, whether anyone has seen it recently: those are the records that feed impairment indicators, disposal records and physical verification.

Stackroom covers that operational half and the book depreciation alongside it: each asset carries cost, purchase date, straight-line or written-down-value method, useful life and salvage value, and a depreciation schedule report sits next to custody history and audit results. It does not calculate MACRS or capital allowances, and it is not a ledger, so treat it as the register that keeps your accounting numbers attached to real, findable equipment.

Sources

• Tangible property final regulations (de minimis safe harbor) — Internal Revenue Service, 2025
• 26 CFR 1.263(a)-1(f) De minimis safe harbor election — eCFR, current
• Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property (for 2025 returns) — Internal Revenue Service, 2026
• How long should I keep records? — Internal Revenue Service
• 8.5 Long-lived assets (ASC 360-10-50-1 disclosures) — PwC Viewpoint
• 5.2 Impairment of long-lived assets to be held and used — PwC Viewpoint
• IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment — IFRS Foundation
• IFRS at a glance: IAS 16 Property, Plant and Equipment — BDO
• FRS 102 (September 2024 edition) — Financial Reporting Council, 2024
• FRS 102 standard page — Financial Reporting Council
• Annual Investment Allowance — GOV.UK
• HS252 Capital allowances and balancing charges (2026) — HMRC, 2026
• Capital allowances: new first-year allowance and reducing main rate writing-down allowances — HMRC, 2025
• Company and accounting records — GOV.UK
• 2 CFR 200.1 Definitions (equipment) — eCFR, current
• 2 CFR 200.313 Equipment — eCFR, current
• Final Rule: Management's Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting, Release 33-8238 — SEC, 2003
• SEC amends accelerated filer definitions (press release 2020-58) — SEC, 2020