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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2026-07-10
Setup Considerations: Asset Accounting

Setup Considerations: Asset Accounting

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of asset books. It explains:
  • Why to set them up.
  • How they fit into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What They Are

Asset books enable you to track and account for business assets.

Business Benefits

  • You can set up asset books to populate accounting treatments and depreciation profiles on business assets automatically, reducing manual data entry.
  • You can account and report on the same asset in multiple books, enabling you to meet multiple accounting standards.

Use Cases

Your organization needs to meet an accounting guideline or standard. You can set up:
  • An accounting asset book to track and generate accounting for your business assets.
  • Multiple nonaccounting books to track your assets for tax purposes.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
How many asset books do you need to generate accounting for?
To use multiple accounting books, you must first enable multibook asset accounting.
You can't disable multibook asset accounting after you enable it.
Workday populates the accounting treatment and depreciation profiles on assets from asset book rules. Assets can have different depreciation treatments and profiles by book. You can change the accounting treatment and depreciation profile on assets in the primary asset book when you assign asset accounting information. To change the cost and depreciation information on assets in nonprimary asset books, you can use the
Update Asset Book Configuration
 web service after you register assets.
When migrating from a single asset book to multiple books, create manual journals to move opening ledger account balances from the common book code to adjustment book codes.
When do you want to place your assets in service?
You can set up your depreciation profiles to place assets in service:
  • Manually or when issued.
  • Upon acquisition.
The depreciation schedule is based on the date when you place an asset in service.
Assets can be in service in some asset books and not others. Example: An asset is expensed in an asset book and depreciable in another book.
When do you start depreciation for post-acquisition lifecycle events?
You can start depreciation for post-acquisition lifecycle events on depreciable capital assets based on either the:
  • Depreciation convention.
  • Transaction effective date of events, using the beginning net book value.
What roles in your company need access to asset books?
You can assign security roles to domains that provide access to accounting or nonaccounting books, or both. You can also provide roles such as tax managers with access to your tax books.
Can you use an existing asset book to create new asset books?
When you add an asset book to a company with assets, you can copy asset information from the existing book to the new one. The fiscal schedule of the new asset book should have fiscal periods from the earliest to the latest effective date for all cost activities that you copy. The depreciation start date for an asset is the earliest transaction effective date for the asset.
Does your company use different local and functional currencies?
To register, track, and depreciate assets independently in your local and functional currencies, you can enable multibook asset accounting and configure an alternate ledger currency. See Concept: Alternate Ledger Currency in Assets.

Recommendations

  • Consolidate asset books across your organization. When you transfer assets between 2 companies, we recommend that both companies have the same asset books.
  • When you account for assets in multiple books, place them in service upon acquisition to maintain the same date across your depreciation profiles.

Requirements

  • Set up spend categories to classify your business assets. Spend categories drive the accounting that posts the asset to the appropriate ledger account.
  • Set up asset book rules to determine which accounting treatment and depreciation profile Workday applies to a business asset.

Limitations

Workday doesn't enable you to:
  • Pool project assets or business assets you create when you capitalize project transactions.
  • Track assets with different quantities by book.
  • Register assets in secondary books but not in the primary book.
  • Transfer assets between companies with different base currencies. You can dispose of assets in the source company and register them in the destination company.

Tenant Setup

You can configure options on the
Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
 task to enable:
  • Multibook asset accounting.
  • Depreciation adjustment options for post-acquisition lifecycle events on depreciable capital assets.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Set Up: Business Asset Accounting
 in the Business Asset Accounting functional area
Enables you to maintain asset book rules and depreciation profiles.
Set Up: Company Asset Books
 in the Business Asset Accounting functional area
Enables you to map asset books to companies.
Set Up: Accounting Rules
 in the Common Financial Management functional area
Enables you to set up account posting rules.
Set Up: Ledger and Book
 in the Common Financial Management functional area
Enables you to set up book codes and books for asset accounting.
Set Up: Spend Categories
 in the Common Financial Management functional area
Enables you to maintain spend categories.
Set Up: Tenant Setup - Tenant Analyzer
 in the System functional area
Enables you to run the
Tenant Analyzer
 report.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
Capital Assets without Accounting Information Assigned
Identify depreciable and nondepreciable capital assets without asset accounting assigned. You have to assign accounting information for Workday to add assets to a company asset book.
Tenant Analyzer
Select the
Validations
 tab in the
Financials
 profile group to verify your tenant configuration of assets books against Workday recommendations.
View Asset Books
Use to:
  • Access asset book rules.
  • View all asset books.
  • View the companies that use each asset book.
View Company Asset Books
Use to:
  • Add asset books to a company.
  • Update asset books.
  • Set up asset book restrictions.
You can also access the
Workday Standard Reports
 report and select the
Business Assets
 and
Set Up Business Assets
 report categories to view details on standard reports for assets.

Integrations

Web Services
Considerations
Get Asset Book Rules
You can use this web service to retrieve asset book rules through the Enterprise Interface Builder (EIB).
Get Asset Depreciation Schedules
You can use this web service to retrieve depreciation schedules through the EIB.
Get Asset Pooling Rules
You can use this web service to retrieve asset pooling rules through the EIB.
Put Asset Book Rules
You can use this web service to update asset book rules through the EIB.
Put Asset Pooling Rule
You can use this web service to update asset pooling rules through the EIB.
Register Asset
When you register assets with this web service, Workday registers assets in the primary asset book with the details you specify. Then, Workday registers assets in nonprimary asset books with:
  • Cost and quantity details from the primary asset book, converted to the alternate ledger currency for asset books in an alternate ledger currency.
  • The accounting treatment and depreciation profile from your asset book rules.
Workday doesn't generate accounting.
Update Asset Book Configuration
You can use this web service to add secondary asset books or update asset book configuration details for assets. Examples:
  • Depreciation details by book.
  • Cost information by book.
Bulk Import Asset Book Configuration
You can use this web service to add secondary asset books or update asset book configuration details for assets in bulk.

Connections and Touchpoints

Features
Considerations
Account posting rules
You can set up account posting rules to direct where transaction journals post in your company ledger accounts.
Asset pooling rules
You can create rules for assets that you pool into 1.
Bonus depreciation rules
You can set up rules to apply bonus depreciation to assets in your nonaccounting asset books.
Company asset book restrictions
You can assign or restrict assets to specific asset books based on:
  • Spend category.
  • Supplier contract type.
  • Lease accounting method.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.