Method · 5 min read
CAPEX and depreciation: what was committed, and what it charges each month
A project can be exactly on budget and still wreck your P&L phasing, simply because it went into service a month later than planned. Investment and depreciation are two different answers, and most CAPEX reports show only the first.
Two answers, not one
This analysis produces both, and keeps them apart on screen, in the workbook and in the review pack:
- The CAPEX variance - what was committed against what was planned, project by project.
- The depreciation schedule - the charge each month over an horizon you set, for new projects and for assets already in service.
Mixing them is the classic error. The first depends on nothing but your file; the second depends on two declarations you make, and moving either one changes every charge without touching a single committed euro.
Two kinds of line in one file
A CAPEX file usually carries both, and no column means the same thing for both:
- A new investment - an amount, the period it goes into service, and a useful life in months.
- An opening asset - something already in service, with what is left to depreciate and over how many months.
So you tell the tool what each value in your line-type column means. Nothing is proposed there, and the reason is blunt: file an already depreciated asset among the new investments and it restarts a full useful life - the charge would be wrong for the whole horizon, and no total would show it.
Opening assets have no CAPEX - they were paid for before this horizon - but they do have a charge. That is exactly what makes them easy to forget in an investment report.
Periods are labels, and you order them
Nothing converts a period label into a date. 2026-01, M1 and Jan are strings, and a real file often lists them out of order - the sample plan writes 2026-03 before 2026-02.
You therefore confirm the order of the horizon, and you confirm that one period is one month. That second one changes no figure by itself, and without it every figure is wrong: a useful life is counted in months, and quarters would divide each charge by three with nothing on screen to show it.
A project whose in-service period is not in your order cannot be placed anywhere, so the schedule is refused rather than built around it, and the lines are named. The screen warns you before you click.
When the first charge falls
An asset in service in March: does it take its first charge in March, or in April? Both conventions exist, neither is more true, and the gap between them is a whole monthly charge on every project. It is never proposed - you pick it, with a worked example next to each choice.
What it looks like on a small plan
The sample plan has four projects and three opening assets over six months, with a budget and an actual. Committed 23,200 against 27,000 planned - 3,800 less than budget, mostly one project not started.
Then the same file, read under each convention:
- From the month of service: 22,200 of depreciation on the actual.
- From the month after: 20,400.
A difference of 1,800 on a plan of this size, from a single declaration. And the CAPEX variance is 3,800 in both cases - the convention decides the charge, not what was committed. Net book value at the end of the horizon comes to 27,000 under the first convention: 23,200 committed plus 26,000 of opening assets, less 22,200 charged.
Build yours
Read your own plan
Drop a CAPEX file, tell the tool what your line types mean, order the horizon and pick the convention. It all runs inside your browser: nothing is uploaded, which you can check in the Network panel while you work.
Open CAPEX & DepreciationWhat it will not do
Straight line, no residual value, no tax. Declining balance, tax depreciation and deferred tax are outside the analysis - stated boundaries, not gaps waiting to be filled.
No impairment, no currency, no lease accounting, no componentisation, no accounting entries. It reads what your file says and schedules it.
No rounding along the way. The monthly charge is the amount divided by the life; only the last charge absorbs the remainder, so the charges sum to the amount exactly. Net book value never goes below zero.
It recommends nothing. No investment priority, no phasing advice.
Questions
What if my file only has new projects?
That is fine. The columns for opening assets are only required if you actually map a line type to them.
Can I read the same file under both conventions?
Yes, and in a monthly review both readings are kept side by side as separate results and separate pack sections - the convention is part of what identifies each one.
Does my file leave the browser?
No. The whole calculation runs in the page, on your machine. There is no upload, no account, and no server that could hold your figures. How to verify that in two minutes.