Determining the cost of computer hardware only at first sight seems to be a simple task. Even if it’s not about complex systems, servers, or network devices. With the most, seemingly simple, devices often arise such ambiguous situations that only a great experience of such work allows you to correctly determine the value of the property. What is so complicated and incomprehensible if every teenager is an expert in computer technology? 🙂 Let’s find out!
Laptop evaluation – who and why they need it.
The service to determine the market value of computer equipment is quite in demand, since it is often needed primarily accountants of enterprises. This article deals with how to evaluate the laptop. The main accounting features of laptops are:
- Relatively short lifetime of such assets.
- As with mobile phones – a strong affiliation to one owner.
- High risk of theft. Most often we face the need to assess the damage associated with the theft of a laptop from the car.
On the basis of the above (first point), a business is relatively often faced with the need to write off assets because the laptop is no longer performing its mandated functions and repair is often not advisable. In addition, it is known that the repair of computer equipment – the process is quite specific and in most cases after such repair reliability of equipment is questionable.
Given the strong affiliation of one owner (second point), many businesses simply sell the computer to the employee who works on it. Such sales may occur not only after the equipment has served a significant part of its service, but also when the staff member who used it in the production activities.
And of course, fully other story is the evaluation of the laptops that were stolen. Rather, the determination of damage to the enterprise caused by the theft of fixed assets.
How to evaluate the laptop
For computer equipment evaluation of any type can be used one of two techniques:
- Determine how much similar laptops are offered for sale, and conclude that our cost is about the same, given the small bargaining. Usually the bidding takes about 10%. Offers for the sale of used computer equipment can be found on any bulletin board on the Internet, for example, RIA.com.
- We estimate the cost of new laptops with similar parameters, based on the offers of large stores of household appliances. Then we calculate the depreciation of our computer against the new one and subtract it from the average cost of new equipment.
It should be noted that both of the above approaches have significant drawbacks and limitations in use. So, the logical question is, how to determine the status of the proposed for sale used laptop? How to determine whether it has hidden defects? And how to be with a significant variation in the price of offers, which is often observed in different ads. It is also not clear how to take into account the shortcomings of our computer, such as abrasion or cracks on the case or scratches on the screen.
With regard to the approach to determining the cost of laptops based on the prices of new ones, problems begin when trying to apply this approach to equipment that is several years old. After all, the manufacturer often changes the model series, and appraisers simply do not have the opportunity to find an object for comparison with suitable characteristics. When performing an evaluation of a laptop, such characteristics particularly:
- Manufacturer, brand.
- Form factor.
- Screen size.
- Processor type and frequency.
- Amount of RAM.
- Type and size of hard disk or ssd.
As in the staff of our appraisal company work including appraisers with higher technical «computer» education (NTUU «KPI» FICS (Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science)), we specialize in conducting fixed asset valuation such types and work with various types of computer and office equipment, complex network equipment, servers. And, of course, we have the opportunity to quickly, competently and qualitatively evaluate laptops, including for accounting purposes.
