A corporation operates a highly automated flexible manufacturing facility. The capital-intensive nature of the corporation's operations makes internal control over the acquisition and use of fixed assets important management objectives. A fixed-asset budget that indicates planned capital expenditures by department is established at the beginning of each year. Department managers request capital expenditures by completing a fixed-asset requisition form, which must be approved by senior management. The firm has a written policy that establishes whether a budget request is to be considered a capital expenditure or routine maintenance expenditure.
A management committee meets each month to review budget reports that compare actual expenditures made by managers to their budgeted amounts and to authorize any additional expenditure that may be necessary. The committee also reviews and approves as necessary any departmental request for sale, retirement, or scrapping of fixed assets. Copies of vouchers used to document department requests for sale, retirement, or scrapping of fixed assets are forwarded to the accounting department to initiate removal of the asset from the fixed-asset ledger.
The accounting department is responsible for maintaining a detailed ledger of fixed assets. When a fixed asset is acquired, it is tagged for identification. The identification number, as well as the cost, location, and other information necessary for depreciation calculations, is entered into the fixed-asset ledger. Depreciation calculations are made each quarter and are posted to the general ledger. Periodic physical inventories of fixed assets are taken for purposes of reconciliation to the fixed-asset ledger as well as appraisal for insurance purposes.