Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

Capital assets that you want

It hardly needs to be said that you need to draw up a list of capital outlays that are required by your strategic and operational plans. For each category of assets (plant, machinery, office, etc.) you should show the expected date of acquisition, total acquisition costs and a depreciation schedule. Some thoughts follow.

What does it cost?

For accounting purposes, the acquisition cost – booked value – of fixed assets is usually taken to include all outlays incurred in bringing them into use. For example, for a computer, booked-value might include the cost of the hardware itself – plus operating software, shipping, installation fees, cabling and so on.

This is one situation where profits for the current period are ...