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What Happens When You Run Fixed Asset Depreciation Calculation More Than Once for the Same Month in Business Central?

If you run Calculate Depreciation for a month, then run it again before posting, Business Central will create the same lines a second time. It does not warn you. Post that batch and you have depreciated twice.

This one catches people at month end, and I have explained it enough times now that it deserves a post.

What is actually happening

Calculate Depreciation does not look at your journal. It looks at the Last Depreciation Date on the Fixed Asset Depreciation Book.

That date only updates when you post. Not when you calculate.

So the sequence goes like this:

  1. You run Calculate Depreciation until 30 April. Lines appear in the Fixed Asset G/L Journal.
  2. Something else comes up and you leave the lines sitting there, unposted.
  3. A few days later you run Calculate Depreciation until 30 April again.
  4. Business Central checks Last Depreciation Date, sees that nothing has been posted, and calculates April all over again.
  5. Now you have two sets of April lines in the same journal.

The system is not confused. From where it is standing, April has never been depreciated, because nothing reached the ledger.

Check before you calculate

Open the Fixed Asset G/L Journal and look at the batch before you run anything. If there are already lines in there, deal with those first. Post them or delete them, but do not calculate on top of them.

The amounts look correct on both sets of lines, which is what makes this dangerous. Nothing on screen tells you the batch is doubled. You have to know to look.

If it already happened

Not yet posted — delete the extra lines from the journal. Do not post and then reverse. Deleting a journal line takes seconds; unwinding posted fixed asset entries does not.

Already posted — go to the FA Ledger Entries for the affected assets, select the duplicate depreciation entries, and use Cancel Entries to reverse them. Then check the Last Depreciation Date is back where it should be before you calculate again.

The habit that avoids all of this

Calculate and post in the same sitting. Do not leave calculated depreciation sitting in a journal overnight.

If your month end runs across several days and that is not realistic, use a journal batch that is only ever used for depreciation, and make checking that it is empty the first step of the run. This is how it works, and once you know the rule it stops being a problem.

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Location: Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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