Excel 2000 in a Nutshell

Name

DB

Synopsis

Use DB to determine the amount of depreciation for an asset during the specified time frame. The depreciation is calculated using the fixed-declining balance method, which calculates the depreciation of the asset using a fixed rate.

To Calculate

=DB(Cost, Salvage, Life, Period, Month)

The Month argument is optional. All other arguments must have a value.

Cost

A numeric value that indicates the total amount paid to acquire the asset.

Life

An integer value that indicates the number of periods that the asset will be depreciated over. For example, if you purchase a computer that will have a useful life of five years you would specify a value of 5 for the Life argument.

Period

An integer value that indicates the period that you want to calculate the depreciation for, such as 2 for the second year’s depreciation amount.

Month

An optional value that indicates the number of months in the first year of depreciation. If you omit this argument, the DB function will use a value of 12, meaning that the asset will be depreciated for the entire year.

Example

Figure 12-5 shows how you can use DB to determine the annual depreciation over four years for a computer that costs $4000 and has a salvage value of $500. This example also allows you to compare the results to the depreciation amounts calculated by DDB, SLN, and SYD.

Figure 12-5. Excel provides multiple functions for determining ...