As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly calculate depreciation for your fixed assets.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your fixed-asset register and your accounting policy, then confirm whether you need accounting depreciation for the accounts rather than HMRC capital allowances for a tax computation.
   2. Gather one complete row for each asset, including its cost, purchase date, date available for use, VAT treatment, residual value, useful life or rate, depreciation method, opening accumulated depreciation and any disposal date.
   3. Ask your bookkeeper or accountant to confirm the depreciation method, useful lives, residual-value policy and date depreciation starts for each relevant asset before using the prompt.
   4. Paste the policy and asset table into the prompt, then ask the model to produce the schedule and spreadsheet-ready formulas without filling gaps by assumption.
   5. Copy the schedule into your spreadsheet and recalculate the asset-level figures using the formulas, checking that opening value less depreciation agrees with each closing value.
   6. Compare the total depreciation with the ledger and prior fixed-asset schedule, resolve every flagged difference, and send the completed schedule to your accountant or responsible finance reviewer before using it in accounts or tax work.

   Prompt

   Calculate an accounting depreciation schedule for the fixed assets listed below. Use pounds sterling and show the working for every asset.
   
   Business accounting policy:
   - Depreciation method: [straight-line / reducing balance / other]
   - Useful life or annual rate: [enter policy]
   - Residual value policy: [enter policy]
   - Depreciation convention, such as full month, half month or date of purchase: [enter policy]
   - Financial year start and end: [enter dates]
   - Date depreciation begins under the policy: [enter rule]
   
   Assets:
   [Paste one row per asset with: asset name, asset category, purchase date, date available for use, cost excluding or including VAT as recorded in the accounts, VAT treatment, residual value, accumulated depreciation at the start of the period, depreciation method if different, useful life or rate if different, disposal date if applicable, and any notes.]
   
   Instructions:
   1. Do not invent or estimate a missing value. List missing inputs and stop that asset's calculation if they prevent a reliable result.
   2. Calculate accounting depreciation only. Do not treat it as HMRC capital allowances or claim that it is the correct tax treatment.
   3. Apply the stated policy consistently and identify any asset where the supplied policy conflicts with the asset data.
   4. Show, for each asset, opening carrying value, current-period depreciation, closing accumulated depreciation and closing carrying value.
   5. Provide spreadsheet-ready formulas or clearly stated formula steps, plus totals for the period.
   6. State every assumption separately and identify which decisions must be confirmed by the business's accountant.
   7. Reconcile the asset-level totals to the overall depreciation total and flag arithmetic inconsistencies.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.