Fixed Assets

Overview of Capital Expenditure

Capital expenditure is money spent on acquiring, upgrading, or building assets, which can be either tangible or intangible (i.e. physical or not physical).

Equipment (Lab & Computer), Fixtures and Fittings and Motor Vehicles costing greater than €10,000 per individual item are capitalised.

Capital expenditure on intangible assets can be on purchases such as computer software, licenses, trademarks, patents, or copyrights or internally generated, for example software and website development costs

Costs associated with an asset include freight, transportation charges, site preparation expenditure, professional fees (e.g. title and surveying) and legal fees directly attributable to the assets acquisition.

Expenditure on general repairs and maintenance cannot be capitalised.

Policy QA315 Fixed Assets sets out information regarding the acquisition, recognition, safeguarding, and disposal for fixed assets in the University.

Fixed Asset Register

The Comptroller and Auditor General require the University to maintain a central Fixed Asset Register (FAR) of all university fixed assets.

Under University policy, only assets with an individual item value of €10,000 (inclusive of VAT) and above at the time of acquisition is captured on the FAR.

To be included on the FAR Formal confirmation is required from the budget holder that the asset is in use. This is obtained via the issue of the ‘Fixed Asset Information request’ form to the budget holder by the Fixed Assets office.

Fixed Assets owned by the University must be tagged with an identification number. The tags are supplied to the budget holder by the Fixed Assets office.

Email: fixedassets@universityofgalway.ie