Financial Compliance

Colby Community College has a significant investment in its fixed assets, which are comprised of land, buildings, and fixed and moveable equipment.  These fixed assets are used to carry on the College’s primary missions of instruction and public service.  An item is considered a fixed (or capital) asset if it is owned or considered owned by the college, is held for operations for more than one year and its acquisition value is $5,000 or more individually or as an operating unit for equipment.  This includes all items gifted to the College as well as purchases made with donated funds.  All fixed assets are owned or deemed accountable by the College and not a specific individual, department or other operating unit. 

Fixed assets are recorded at cost at date of acquisition for purchased items. Donated items are recorded at fair market value on the date received.  Depreciation is calculated on the straight-line basis over the estimated useful life of each class of depreciable asset. Estimated lives range from 3 to 50 years. Since land does not have an estimated useful life, it is not depreciated.

Guidelines have been established to help College departments and personnel ensure that the College’s fixed assets are acquired, safeguarded, controlled, disposed of, and accounted for in accordance with state and federal regulations, audit requirements, and generally accepted accounting principles.

Responsibilities of the Controller

The Controller is responsible for handling a variety of day to day accounting responsibilities such as account analysis and reconciliation, as well as reporting and analysis, which include fixed asset accounting, debt service, bond proceeds analysis, and accounting for capital leases.

Capital Assets

Assets are depreciated using the straight-line method. The range of estimated useful lives by asset categories is summarized as follows:

Asset category	Years
Buildings	45 to 50
Building Improvements	5 to 20
Furniture and Equipment	5 to 15
Vehicles	3 to 8
I.T. Equipment Hardware/software	3 to 10

 

The costs of normal maintenance and repairs that do not increase the value of the asset or materially extend assets lives are not capitalized.

What to Do When Capital Assets Are Delivered

A member of the Business Affairs Office staff will contact the person that initiates the purchase requisition within a few weeks of the purchase to schedule a time to tag the asset. This tag number will be referenced on the inventory sheet of the asset and will be forwarded via email to the department head and the person that initiates the purchase requisition. The inventory sheet includes the location, purchase information such as date of purchase, manufacturer, model, serial number, department’s name, department’s contact person and fixed asset number. The fixed asset inventory information sheet will be entered into the Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains Fixed Assets System.

Selling, Trading-in, Donating or Disposing of a Capital Asset

The Business Affairs Office staff must be notified of all disposals of capital equipment. When selling, donating, trading-in or disposing of capital equipment, the department responsible for the capital equipment must complete the equipment and furniture disposal form in order to properly account for removing the asset from Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains Fixed Asset System.

The Policy for Disposal of College Assets can be viewed online.

Additionally, the Business Affairs Office staff must be notified via email or telephone prior of all transfers of capital equipment to another department or location within the College. 

[Added February 2020]