Running the Depreciation Batch
Schedules are promises; the depreciation posting batch keeps them. Every night it sweeps all assets for ledger lines whose date has arrived and posts them to the general ledger — the one recurring bookkeeping chore in fixed assets, fully automated. Set it up once, then read its results in the ledger.
Access you'll need. Scheduling and running the batch requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set. The Accounts Payable v2, Accounts Receivable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view the posted charges but not run the batch.
What a run does
Finds every due line
Across all assets and entities: Scheduled depreciation/amortization lines dated on or before the run date. Month-end lines become due the night they mature.
…and only the due lines
Four tests, all of which must pass: Status Scheduled · Book Financial · Ledger Date on or before the run date · Amount greater than zero. Draft manual entries, future months, alternative-book (Tax/IFRS) lines and zero-amount lines are all left exactly where they are.
Posts each one
Line status → Posted, which writes the GL pair — for Meridian's equipment: DR Depreciation and Amortisation $83.33 / CR Accumulated Depreciation — PP&E $83.33 — in the period the line's date resolves to. Accumulated Depreciation and Net Book Value update through the posting, never by hand.
Retries what it can't post — automatically
A line whose accounting period doesn't exist yet (or is closed) simply stays Scheduled and is retried next run. This is also the catch-up mechanism: if the batch was off for three months, the next run posts all three months' due lines. Failures are logged for the administrator; the batch never half-posts a line.
The Financial Admin Console card
Financial Admin Console → the Asset Depreciation Posting card ("Post due depreciation & amortization entries to the General Ledger"). It shows how many entries are due, the last run, and the next scheduled fire; a daily schedule (default 02:00) and a Run Now for month-end impatience — "This posts every due Asset Ledger depreciation / amortization entry to the General Ledger."
A tour of everything on the card, in its own words:
| Element | What it tells you / does |
|---|---|
| Pending Entries | "{n} entries are due to post." (or "1 entry is due to post.") — the live count of Scheduled lines whose date has arrived. Your health check: this should be zero shortly after month-end's run. |
| Last run / next fire | When the batch last ran and when the daily schedule will fire next. |
| Daily schedule | "Automatically post all due depreciation / amortization entries every day at a set time." — default 02:00. Saving it confirms: "Asset depreciation posting scheduled daily at {time}." The scheduled job is named REDA Asset Depreciation Posting. |
| Run Now | Asks "Run depreciation posting now?", explains "This posts every due Asset Ledger depreciation / amortization entry to the General Ledger.", then confirms "Depreciation posting batch started (job {id})." If there's nothing to do: "There are no entries due to post right now." |
Posting by hand (the exception)
Any single line can be posted directly — change its status to Posted (Meridian did exactly that to record July's charge early). Manual ledger entries (Manual method, Units of Production, adjustments) post the same way, with validations keeping them honest: a positive amount and two different GL accounts are required. And the list view's Bulk Status Update handles a filtered set at once, each line passing its own checks.
The full set of rules a line must satisfy to post, verbatim:
| The message | What it means / what to do |
|---|---|
| "Cannot post this Asset Ledger entry - Amount must be greater than zero." | A zero or negative charge isn't a posting — enter the real amount. |
| "Cannot post this Asset Ledger entry - both a Debit GL Account and a Credit GL Account are required." | Each line is a self-contained two-account movement — usually the defaults from the Asset Type; fill any blanks. |
| "The Debit GL Account and Credit GL Account must be different." | Debiting and crediting the same account moves nothing. |
| "Cannot post this Asset Ledger entry because its Capital Asset has no Entity." | Postings belong to a company's books — set the asset's Entity first. |
| "Failed to post this Asset Ledger entry: {reason}" | The GL layer refused (a closed period, for instance) — the stated reason is the fix. |
| "This Asset Ledger entry is posted and cannot be changed. Move it to Draft to edit it (its GL entries are removed), or delete it." | Posted lines lock; unwinding one is a deliberate reversal, not an edit. |
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Never scheduling the daily job | Lines mature and pile up unposted; depreciation appears in the GL only when someone remembers | Set the daily schedule on the Financial Admin Console card once — 02:00 works for almost everyone |
| Not generating accounting periods ahead | Month-end lines land in nonexistent periods and wait as "skipped (no period yet)" — expense goes missing from the close | Generate periods ahead of the schedule; the retry will catch everything up, but your close shouldn't depend on it |
| Treating "skipped (no period yet)" as an error | Panic, manual interventions, duplicate work — for a case the batch resolves by itself | Open the period, then let the next run (or Run Now) post it |
| Expecting the batch to post Tax or IFRS book lines | It never will — the batch posts the Financial book only, so alternative-book lines sit Scheduled forever | Keep alternative-book figures as records; see Multi-Ledger Depreciation |
| Checking the P&L but never the ops card | A silently stopped schedule looks like "low depreciation this month" until someone reconciles | Make Pending Entries = 0 part of the month-end checklist, next to the P&L tie-out |
Where to go next
- Depreciation Schedule Generation — where the due lines come from.
- Depreciation Batch — the ops-side view.
- Closing the Books — the month-end this feeds.
Frequently asked questions
Almost always "no period yet": the line's date falls in a period that doesn't exist or is closed. Generate/open the period and the next run (or Run Now) picks them up — that's the designed retry, not a failure.
It posts the Asset Ledger lines themselves — each posted line writes its own accounting transactions (the asset ledger is a first-class posting source, like an invoice). No separate journal entry documents are involved.
The scheduled batch is org-wide by design (due is due). For surgical work, filter the Asset Ledger list to the lines you mean and use Bulk Status Update — same postings, your scope.
Everything catches up in one run: a run posts all due lines, however far back their dates reach. Each charge still lands in the period its own date resolves to, so the history books stay correct — nothing is lumped into "this month".
The Audit Log — each failed line is recorded as "Asset Depreciation Post Failed" with Severity Critical, and the run's summary reads "Posted X, failed Y, skipped (no period yet) Z." Failed lines stay Scheduled, so fixing the cause is enough: the next run retries them automatically.
No — it only selects Financial-book lines. That's a feature: Tax and IFRS lines are parallel records that stay out of your general ledger unless you deliberately post one by hand.
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