A plant asset is an asset that has a very productive life of over more than a year. It is made use of in producing revenues in a business’s operations. Plant assets are also widely known as “fixed assets”.
Photo: Jetstar Airways / Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-SA
Plant assets are depreciated over time except for the land. They are recorded at their potential cost and depreciation expense is recorded during their useful lives.
Most plant assets are either 1) long term assets, 2) assets that are not easy to liquidate, or 3) both of them. Long term assets are mostly very difficult to liquidate.
The four main categories of plant assets are equipment, land, buildings, and improvements.
One of these assets doesn’t depreciate at all with time, which is the land. The other three are depreciable because no matter how well built and advanced they are, by the time, their value will decrease and you will either need to repair or replace them.
Let’s have a look at the four categories of plant assets in detail.
Buildings
The most well-known building assets are retail spaces, factories, and office buildings. There are hundreds of other types of buildings too that fall under this category. Every unique building falls under its own distinct category. For example, in the vehicle industry, a safety facility could be a plant asset. The total cost of a building depends on many things like the purchase price, repairs, broker commission, insurance, architect fee, and interest, etc. All these things sum up the total investment of this asset plant. There could be other things too like closing costs and permits.
Equipment
Equipment is an important plant asset. It is not possible to list all the equipment, but anything from six-figure farm equipment to an office copier can approve as potential equipment. The costs linked with equipment are purchase price, shipping, taxes, installations, etc. If you are investing in equipment, it is advised to buy pre-owned equipment to save money. You can find the best equipment suited according to your budget online, for example, you can get easily affordable sheet metal shear and much other equipment at just one click.
Land
The land is the one asset that doesn’t depreciate over time. We can expand the land. This asset includes land, building sites, and other taxable parcels, etc. The land is a very stable investment to make. It is an inactive investment as compared to the factories but yet extremely strong.
Improvements
Improvements are most widely linked with land use. Land improvements consist of building up things like street lights, parking lots, fences, lakes, landscaping, etc. Building improvements like decoration, design, etc also fall under this category. The costs covering these improvements are simply the ones that are needed to build, install, and design these things. For example for a street light, the total cost would cover the purchase price, the installation price, and labour.
It’s actually about time that you educate yourself about these plant assets to make your business flourish.
Back to Homepage
Back to Consumer Goods