Intermediate Accounting For Dummies

Chapter 11

Buying and Selling Property, Plant, and Equipment (PP&E)

In This Chapter

Getting familiar with different types of tangible assets

Assigning costs to the balance sheet

Determining the cost of self-constructed assets

Preparing the asset section of a balance sheet

Placing a value on PP&E

Getting rid of old PP&E

Now that you’ve read about current assets, it’s time to move on to noncurrent assets, which are assets with a life of more than one year. Your biggie noncurrent assets are tangible and intangible assets. This chapter talks about tangible assets, which you can touch and feel — they have a physical presence.

Tangible assets, also called fixed assets, include property, plant, and equipment (PP&E). I cover intangible assets, which lack a physical presence such as patents, in Chapter 13.

Companies don’t always acquire tangible assets just using cash or credit — they also ...