Log Downtime And Dispose Of An Asset

Two things bookend an asset’s working life: the spells it is out of service while it still earns its keep, and the day it is retired for good. This guide covers both — logging and closing downtime episodes (Veona’s availability ledger), and disposing of an asset (retiring it off the books and booking the financial result).

Who / when: the asset manager logs and closes downtime as equipment goes down and comes back. Disposal is different — it permanently retires a capitalised asset off the balance sheet, so it is a controllership decision reserved to Finance (the finance manager), not the asset manager.

We will follow Emeka the biomedical engineer for the downtime, and the finance manager for the disposal.

Log and close downtime

Downtime is any period an asset is unavailable. The downtime log is the availability ledger — the truthful record of how much of the time each asset was actually usable, which is what drives availability and reliability reporting.

1. Asset manager — open Assets → Downtime and press “Log Downtime”.
2. Asset manager — choose the Asset, a Reason (Breakdown, Planned Maintenance, Calibration, Awaiting Parts, Awaiting Vendor or Other), the Started At time, and any Notes.
3. Asset manager — press “Open Episode”. While it has no end, the asset reads Down Now.
4. Asset manager — when the asset is back in service, press “Close” on its row, set the Ended At time (and an optional note), and press “Close Episode”. Veona computes the duration.

Note

Downtime moves no money — it is purely an operational/availability record, with no General Ledger entry. It does connect to maintenance, though: completing a work order linked to the asset auto-closes any open downtime episode, so you do not have to remember to close it by hand. The “Down Now” filter shows everything currently out of service.

Dispose of an asset

Disposal retires a fixed asset off the books — when it is sold, scrapped, or otherwise gone. It is the financial counterpart to taking the equipment out of service for good.

1. Finance manager — open Assets → Asset Register and click the asset’s row to open its detail.
2. Finance manager — press “Dispose Asset” (shown only while the asset is not already disposed).
3. Finance manager — set the Disposal Date, the Proceeds (what you got for it — 0 if scrapped), and an optional Note.
4. Finance manager — press “Confirm Disposal”. Veona posts the retirement and flips the asset to Disposed.

Caution

Disposal is the one posting in this module that hard-errors rather than skipping when accounts are missing — a gain or loss needs an expense account mapped, and any proceeds need a Cash account mapped, in Finance & Ledger → Settings. If they are not, the disposal is refused so you never lose the entry silently. Map the accounts first.

Note

The disposal entry removes the asset cleanly and settles the result: it credits the asset account at its gross value (taking it off the books), reverses (debits) the accumulated depreciation built up against it, debits Cash for any proceeds received, and books the gain or loss to balance. The gain or loss is proceeds minus net book value — sell it for more than it is worth on the books and that is a gain; for less, a loss. Either way the books are square and the asset is gone.

What happens next

Closed downtime episodes feed the availability and reliability picture and clear the Assets Down dashboard tile. A disposed asset drops out of the active register (filter by Disposed to find it), its retirement lands in the General Ledger, and its net book value comes off the balance sheet — the end of its lifecycle, recorded in the same one record where it began.

Follow the trail

• Previous: Record Calibration And Service Contracts
• Back to start: Assets & Maintenance overview
• Related: The Finance fixed-asset view · Map your finance accounts · Plan Preventive Maintenance And Raise Work Orders