Fixed asset register format for Indian businesses: columns, sample and common mistakes
A fixed asset register (FAR) is the list that connects the "fixed assets" number in your balance sheet to the actual laptops, machines and furniture in your offices. Here is what it should contain, a filled-in sample, the mistakes we see most often, and how to move it out of Excel.
Updated 2 November 2026 · About 10 minutes to read
The short version
At minimum, every row needs: asset ID (tag), description, category, location/branch, custodian, purchase and put-to-use dates, invoice number, vendor, cost, GST and whether credit was taken, useful life, depreciation method, accumulated depreciation, written down value (WDV), status and disposal details. One row per asset, and a physical label on the asset carrying the same ID.
Who asks for a fixed asset register, and why
Your statutory auditor asks for it at year-end. For companies covered by the Companies (Auditor's Report) Order, 2020 (CARO 2020), the auditor has to report whether the company maintains proper records showing full particulars, including quantitative details and situation, of its property, plant and equipment, and whether management has physically verified them at reasonable intervals. Your CA needs it to work out depreciation. Banks may ask for it when you offer assets as security, and insurers will want it when you make a claim.
Inside the business, the register answers everyday questions: what do we own, where is it, who is responsible for it, what is it worth today, and when does its warranty end?
The columns, and why each one is there
You can add more, but these are the ones that matter in practice in India.
| Column | What to enter | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Asset ID / tag number | A unique code, e.g. VG/LAP/014. Printed on the label stuck on the asset. | The only reliable link between the row and the physical item. Never reuse an ID. |
| Description | Make, model, serial number, key specs. "Laptop, i5, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, S/N …" | "Laptop" alone is useless when you have forty of them. |
| Category / asset class | Computers, Furniture & fittings, Office equipment, Plant & machinery, Vehicles… | Decides the useful life and the Income-tax block, so keep categories aligned with your accounts. |
| Location / branch | Branch, then floor, room or department. | Physical verification is impossible if everything says "Head office". |
| Custodian | The person responsible for the item. | Someone has to answer for it. Essential for laptops and tools. |
| Purchase date and put-to-use date | Both dates, if they differ. | Companies Act depreciation is pro rata from the date of addition; the Income-tax 180-day test depends on when it was put to use. |
| Invoice number and date | As on the supplier's invoice. | Lets the auditor trace the asset to the purchase entry and the GST return. |
| Vendor | Supplier name and GSTIN. | Needed for warranty claims, AMC and repeat orders. |
| Cost | Purchase price plus freight, installation and other costs to make it ready for use; less discounts. | This is what gets depreciated. |
| GST amount and ITC status | GST paid, and whether input tax credit was claimed. | If you claim ITC, GST is not part of the cost. If ITC was not available or not claimed, it is. |
| Useful life | Years, normally as per Schedule II of the Companies Act (e.g. 3 years for laptops). | Drives book depreciation. |
| Depreciation method and rate | SLM or WDV for books; the Income-tax block rate (e.g. 40% for computers) for tax. | Books and tax use different rules. See our depreciation guide. |
| Residual value | Usually up to 5% of cost under Schedule II. | The amount you don't depreciate. |
| Accumulated depreciation | Total depreciation charged till date. | Needed for the WDV and for working out profit or loss on sale. |
| WDV / net book value | Cost minus accumulated depreciation. | What the asset is worth in your books today. |
| Status | In use, In store, Under repair, Lent out, Disposed. | Tells you instantly what is available and what isn't. |
| Disposal details | Date, how (sold, scrapped, written off), sale value, who approved, profit or loss. | Disposed assets should stay on record, marked as disposed, not be deleted. |
Useful extras: warranty and AMC end dates, photo of the asset, insurance policy number, and a remarks column.
Sample fixed asset register
Four rows from a small company's register as on 31 March 2026, using Companies Act straight-line depreciation with a 5% residual value and pro-rata depreciation in the year of purchase. GST input tax credit was claimed on all four, so GST is not part of the cost.
| Asset ID | Description | Category | Branch / location | Custodian | Put to use | Invoice / vendor | Cost | GST (ITC) | Life / method | Acc. dep. | WDV | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VG/LAP/014 | Laptop, i5, 16 GB, 512 GB SSD | Computers | Pune · Accounts | R. Kulkarni | 10-07-2025 | INV/25-26/0412 · Supplier A | 68,000.00 | 12,240 (claimed) | 3 yrs · SLM | 15,633.79 | 52,366.21 | In use |
| VG/SRV/002 | Rack server with 2 × 2 TB disks | Computers (server) | Pune · Server room | IT admin | 01-04-2024 | INV/24-25/0007 · Supplier B | 2,40,000.00 | 43,200 (claimed) | 6 yrs · SLM | 76,000.00 | 1,64,000.00 | In use |
| VG/FUR/031 | Conference table, 8-seater | Furniture & fittings | Pune · Meeting room 1 | Office admin | 15-08-2023 | INV/23-24/0198 · Supplier C | 45,000.00 | 8,100 (claimed) | 10 yrs · SLM | 11,236.48 | 33,763.52 | In use |
| VG/OFF/003 | Multifunction photocopier | Office equipment | Nashik · Front office | Office admin | 01-04-2020 | INV/20-21/0002 · Supplier D | 1,10,000.00 | 19,800 (claimed) | 5 yrs · SLM | 1,04,500.00 | 5,500.00 | Disposed: sold 20-01-2026 for 6,000 (profit 500), approved by director |
How the numbers were worked out:
- Laptop: (68,000 − 5% residual of 3,400) ÷ 3 years = 21,533.33 a year. Put to use on 10 July 2025, so 265 of 365 days in FY 2025-26: 21,533.33 × 265 ÷ 365 = 15,633.79.
- Server: (2,40,000 − 12,000) ÷ 6 = 38,000 a year, for two full years (FY 2024-25 and 2025-26) = 76,000.
- Conference table: (45,000 − 2,250) ÷ 10 = 4,275 a year. FY 2023-24 had 366 days and the table was used for 230 of them: 2,686.48. Add two full years: 11,236.48.
- Photocopier: (1,10,000 − 5,500) ÷ 5 = 20,900 a year for five years, fully depreciated to 5,500 by 31 March 2025. Sold for 6,000, so a profit of 500 in the books.
You can reproduce any of these rows with our free depreciation calculator.
Header row you can copy into Excel
If you are starting from scratch, copy this line and paste it into the first row of a sheet. It is tab-separated, so Excel puts each heading in its own column.
Asset ID Description Category Branch Location Custodian Purchase date Put-to-use date Invoice no. Invoice date Vendor Vendor GSTIN Cost GST amount ITC claimed (Y/N) Useful life (years) Method Residual value Accumulated depreciation WDV Status Disposal date Disposal mode Sale value Approved by Warranty / AMC end
One asset, one row (mostly)
Give a separate row and label to anything that moves, has a serial number, or is worth tracking on its own: computers, phones, projectors, machines, vehicles, office chairs in most offices. For a large number of identical low-value items, such as 200 plastic chairs in a school hall, many businesses keep one row with a quantity instead. Consumables such as toner, gloves or welding rods do not belong in the fixed asset register at all; keep them in a stock register.
Common mistakes
- No physical tag. If the asset doesn't carry its ID, nobody can verify the register against the floor.
- Reusing IDs. When a laptop is sold, its ID should retire with it. Reusing VG/LAP/014 for a new laptop corrupts the history of both.
- Vague locations. "Head office" or "Store" for everything makes physical verification a treasure hunt.
- Getting GST wrong. Adding GST to cost and also claiming input tax credit on it. Under section 16(3) of the CGST Act you cannot take credit on the tax component if you claim depreciation on it, so it has to be one or the other.
- Only the invoice date. A machine bought in February and installed in May starts depreciating differently. Keep the put-to-use date.
- One depreciation column. Book depreciation (Companies Act) and tax depreciation (Income-tax Act, worked out on blocks of assets) are different numbers. Keep both, or at least know which one your sheet shows.
- Deleting disposed assets. Mark them disposed with date, value and approval. Deleting the row loses the audit trail.
- Never reconciling with the books. The total cost and accumulated depreciation in the register should match the fixed asset schedule in your accounts. Check this every year.
- Verifying once in five years. Do a physical verification at least once a year, before year-end, and keep a record of what was found and what was missing.
- Five copies of the sheet. One on the accountant's laptop, one with admin, one emailed to the auditor last year. Nobody knows which is current.
Moving from Excel to Assets Tracker
Excel is fine to begin with. It starts to hurt when you have several branches, staff joining and leaving, and an auditor asking for physical verification. Here is how to move without starting again.
Clean the sheet first
One row per asset. Use the same spelling for every category, branch, department and employee name, and fill in missing locations and custodians.
Set up the basics
Create your categories, branches, departments and employees in Assets Tracker.
Paste your rows
Copy the rows from Excel and paste them in. Assets Tracker works with its own set of fields and does not support custom fields, so keep your old sheet as an archive for any columns that are specific to you.
Print labels and add photos
Print QR and Code 128 labels in batches by category (for example
VG/CPU/001onwards) on A4 sheets of 70×37 mm (24 per sheet) or 38×21 mm (65 per sheet), or on a thermal roll. While sticking each label, take a photo of the asset; every asset needs at least one.Assign items to people
Assign each item to its custodian. The employee confirms receipt from a link with a code, which gives you a confirmed custodian for every item.
Run your first physical audit
On the Growth plan and above, audit by scanning labels with a phone, branch by branch, and follow up on whatever wasn't scanned.
Share with your auditor
Export the register to Excel or PDF, or give your auditor the read-only auditor role. Depreciation as per the Income-tax Act and the Companies Act is available on the Growth plan and above.
For sector-specific advice, see how this works for schools, hospitals, offices and CA firms and factories. यह जानकारी हिंदी में चाहिए? हिंदी पेज देखें।
Frequently asked questions
Is a fixed asset register mandatory in India?
For companies covered by CARO 2020, the statutory auditor must report whether the company maintains proper records of its property, plant and equipment with full particulars, quantitative details and situation, and whether they were physically verified at reasonable intervals. In practice that means a fixed asset register. Other businesses still need one to support the depreciation they claim and to answer audit and bank queries.
What is the difference between a fixed asset register and a stock register?
A fixed asset register lists items you keep and use over several years, such as computers, furniture and machines, and tracks their cost and depreciation. A stock register tracks items that are consumed or sold, such as toner, raw material or gloves, with quantities coming in and going out.
Should GST be included in the cost of a fixed asset?
If you claim input tax credit on the GST, the GST is not part of the asset's cost. If credit was not available or not claimed, the GST is added to the cost. You cannot claim both the credit and depreciation on the same tax amount.
How often should we physically verify fixed assets?
At least once a year, ideally just before year-end, and more often for high-risk items like laptops and tools. Record what was found, what was missing and how differences were resolved.
Can we keep the fixed asset register in Excel?
Yes, many small businesses do. The trouble starts with multiple branches, staff changes and physical verification. Software with labels, scanning and custodian acknowledgement keeps the register in step with what is actually on the floor.
Sources
- Property, plant and equipment under CARO 2020 – Taxmann: clauses 3(i)(a) and 3(i)(b) on proper records and physical verification.
- Section 16, CGST Act, 2017 – TaxGuru: no input tax credit on the tax component if depreciation is claimed on it.
- Schedule II, Companies Act, 2013 – Income Tax Department: useful lives, 5% residual value, pro rata depreciation.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Check with your CA for your specific case.