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  • 1.  Financial Treatment of Spare Parts

    Posted 05-09-2023 02:56 PM

    Greetings all

    I would like to reach out to the community to understand how spare parts are treated financially in different organizations.  I am approaching this from the context of a consumer goods manufacturer that has spare parts inventory for its production equipment.

    In general, spare parts can be treated as a fixed asset (property, plant and equipment) or current asset (working capital or inventory).

    If spare parts are defined as current assets or inventory, they need to be consumed within 1 year of purchase to meet the definition of a current asset.  However, we currently have spare parts that don't move every year but are required as safety stock e.g. PLC cards, large motors etc.  This makes classifying them as current asset/inventory difficult from a financial point of view as the inventory is not consumed in 1 year.

    If we define spare parts as a fixed asset (property, plant and equipment) then we will have tens of thousands of individuals items as assets in our balance sheet/asset register.  Moreover, how would the MRP system work when a consumed part that needs replenishment needs to be expensed against a capital budget?

    My questions to the community are:

    ·       - How do you treat spare parts in your organization i.e inventory or fixed asset

    ·      -  How do you address some of the issues I highlighted above in your organization

    ·       - Is there any other way (say hybrid approach) that folks are using to account for their spare parts

    I would greatly appreciate your insights.


    Sangeev



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    Sangeev Parbhu
    London ON
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  • 2.  RE: Financial Treatment of Spare Parts

    Posted 05-11-2023 04:55 AM

    It is a normal practice world wide that during detailed engineering spares of all asset identified and procured so that plant may run reliable with those spares available when needed either within 01 year or 02 year time period.

    The financial aspect to neglect spare coming during project phase is one example, means plant owners keep those spare as zero value and classify them as project spare in CMMS.

    Which donot impact the overal asset value since the cost was paid earlier already under that project phase.

    Thanks,



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    Muhammad Yaseen
    Saudi Arabia
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  • 3.  RE: Financial Treatment of Spare Parts

    Posted 05-11-2023 05:56 AM
    I would suggest theses guidelines for spare parts inventory stocks
    1) Health, Safety and Environmental impact
    2) Critical and non critical
    3) Frequency of replacement
    4) Timely Availability from Manufacturer or Supplier rather than storing in-house

    Respectfully Yours
    Mr. Kuarlal Rampersad, “VA,PE,CLS,OMA,CMRP”
    Chairman, SMRP Trinidad Caribbean Chapter
    Phone: 1(868)683-3259
    Email: ramperk@live.com




  • 4.  RE: Financial Treatment of Spare Parts

    Posted 05-11-2023 06:01 AM

    I would suggest theses guidelines for spare parts inventory stocks
    1) Health, Safety and Environmental impact
    2) Critical and non critical
    3) Frequency of replacement
    4) Timely Availability from Manufacturer or Supplier rather than storing in-house



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    Kuarlal Rampersad
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  • 5.  RE: Financial Treatment of Spare Parts

    Posted 05-11-2023 09:41 AM

    Hi Sangeev,

     

    If I understand your question correctly, the issue you describe is identification, management, and accounting for spare parts that are either capital spares or ordinary spare parts.

     

    If you are using an ERP system like SAP (this is where my experience rests), there are mechanisms to account for the parts as follows:

     

    • Capital (track quantity in the inventory account but do not track value in the spare part valuation).  The value is tracked in the asset ledger.
    • Current or normal spare parts (track quantity and value in the inventory account).
    • Capital project stock (track quantity and value in the project account).  When the project is completed, the entire value is posted to an asset in the asset ledger.

     

    In terms of reordering parts, MRP is possible under the scenarios above.  The debits and credits will be handled in the background according to how the system is configured.

     

    In terms of current inventory (1 year or less) that is not used in the referenced timeframe, I suspect your accounting folks are posting entries into a reserve account for write down purposes.  The spare part inventory list may show a valuation of X based on moving average cost or standard cost and your balance sheet account may reflect that valuation less any write downs.

     

    Hopefully, I understood your question properly and the information is of use.

     

    Talk soon,

    Steve Carr

    Symphonic Technologies