Multi-Ledger Depreciation

Controller 5 min read Updated July 2026

One asset, several truths: the financial books say sixty months straight-line; the tax authority may demand a different pattern; group IFRS reporting may want a third. REDA Financials structures the asset ledger for that reality with a Book dimension on every line — Financial, Tax, and IFRS — plus a Ledger reference tying lines to your ledger setup.

Getting there. Open the App Launcher (the grid icon at the top-left of any page) → REDA Financials AI → the Capital Assets tab, open an asset, and work in its Asset Ledger related list, where each line carries its Book.
Access you'll need. Any REDA Financials permission set can view the ledger's book lines; recording Tax- or IFRS-book lines requires the Accounting Admin v2 or Accounting Controller v2 permission set.

How it works today

The engine runs the Financial book. Generated schedules, the nightly batch, disposals, impairments, revaluations — all write Financial-book lines, and those are what post to your general ledger. Accumulated Depreciation and Net Book Value on the asset are Financial-book figures.
Tax and IFRS books are parallel-schedule lanes. Lines can be recorded under those books to maintain alternative depreciation calculations alongside the financial one — typically entered by your tax team or loaded at year-end, deliberately kept out of the GL posting flow.
The Ledger lookup on each line defaults from the entity's primary ledger, anchoring every line to your ledger structure.

Book	Who writes its lines	Posted by the nightly batch?	Feeds the asset's NBV?
Financial	The system — schedule generation, capitalization, impairment, revaluation, disposal (plus any manual entries you make)	Yes — the batch selects Scheduled Financial-book lines only	Yes — Accumulated Depreciation sums Posted Financial-book lines
Tax	You — nothing generates Tax-book lines	No — never picked up automatically	No
IFRS	You — nothing generates IFRS-book lines	No — never picked up automatically	No

Those two "no" columns are load-bearing. Because the batch filters on the Financial book, alternative-book lines can sit Scheduled forever without ever touching the GL — that's what makes them a safe parking lane. And because the Accumulated Depreciation rollup counts only Posted Financial-book lines, the asset's headline NBV always tells the financial-books story, no matter how much tax data lives beside it.

The book field is the fence — respect it. Enter a tax figure as a Financial-book Scheduled line by mistake and the nightly batch will faithfully post it to your general ledger when its date arrives, distorting depreciation expense and NBV. Alternative figures belong in the Tax or IFRS book, where the automation deliberately never looks.

Set expectations with your tax team. The alternative books are a structured place to keep parallel figures, not a second calculation engine — there's no automatic tax-book schedule generation. Most organizations compute tax depreciation in their tax tooling and record the results (or just the year-end summary) here, so asset-by-asset comparisons live next to the financial truth.

A practical pattern

Let the Financial book run itself

Activation and the batch handle it — nothing to do.

Record alternative-book lines where they earn their keep

For assets where tax and book depreciation genuinely diverge (accelerated tax treatments, different lives), add Tax-book lines with the tax amounts and dates. Filters on Book keep the lanes clean in every list view and report.

Reconcile the difference

The Financial-vs-Tax gap per asset is your deferred-tax working paper — now permanently attached to the asset that caused it.

When you add an alternative-book line, it's an ordinary Asset Ledger entry: give it the Book (Tax or IFRS), its date and amount, and leave it unposted (Draft or Scheduled — the batch won't touch either in an alternative book). If you ever do deliberately post one by hand, the standard line rules apply — a positive amount, both a debit and a credit GL account, and two different accounts — and it will write GL entries like any posted line, so that's a controller's deliberate choice, not the default pattern.

One diary, several storylines. All books live on the same Asset Ledger tab — the Book column is what separates the lanes. That's the advantage over a spreadsheet: the tax figures sit beside the financial lines they diverge from, on the asset they belong to, with the same audit trail.

Common mistakes to avoid

Mistake	Why it hurts	Do this instead
Recording tax depreciation as Financial-book lines	The nightly batch posts them to the GL when due — expense and NBV distort	Always set Book = Tax (or IFRS) on alternative figures; the automation then ignores them by design
Waiting for the system to generate a Tax-book schedule	It never comes — generation writes the Financial book only	Compute alternative depreciation in your tax tooling and record the results here
Reading the asset's NBV as "the tax position"	Headline NBV sums only Posted Financial-book lines — the tax lane isn't in it	Sum the Tax-book lines (a Book-filtered view or report) for the per-book position
Posting alternative-book lines "for completeness"	Each posted line writes real GL entries — your single-truth ledger gains a second depreciation stream	Keep alternative books as unposted records unless a deliberate, controller-approved posting is the intent

Where to go next

Depreciation Rules & Methods — the methods each ledger can use.
Depreciation Schedule Generation — how each ledger's schedule is built.
Running the Depreciation Batch — posting each ledger's lines.
Bonus & Section 179 Depreciation — tax-ledger acceleration in the US.
Understanding Fixed Assets — the big picture behind the books.

Frequently asked questions

The posting flow is built around the Financial book — keep alternative-book lines as records (Scheduled/Draft) rather than posting them, so your GL stays single-truth while the asset carries both calculations.

The asset's headline NBV is the Financial book. Alternative-book positions are the sum of their lines — a Book-filtered list view or report gives the per-book picture.

If it hasn't posted yet, just edit the Book field (or delete the line and re-enter it correctly). If the batch already posted it, move it back to Draft — its GL entries are removed and the rollups revert — then set the right book. The sooner the better: every day it sits Scheduled in the Financial book is a day closer to its date.

No — those actions write Financial-book lines only. If your tax records need a mirroring entry, your tax team records it in the Tax lane the same way as its depreciation: deliberately, by hand.

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