CIP problems rarely begin at capitalization.
By the time a problem is visible in the CIP balance, its cause is usually several steps upstream — in how the project was set up, who was expected to signal completion, how costs were coded, or whether anyone owned the handoff from project to asset.
Fixed Asset Consultant traces issues upstream and downstream rather than treating capitalization as an isolated accounting event.
The full path from capital expenditure to a defensible asset record.
Identify what is genuinely open, what finished years ago, and what has no owner — then clear it with a defensible basis.
Define what closeout means, who triggers it, what evidence supports it, and how it becomes routine instead of an annual scramble.
Establish when an asset is ready and available for its intended use, with worked examples for the situations that actually recur.
Handle phased occupancy and staged completion so portions of a project capitalize when they should.
Build the handoff between projects, procurement, facilities and accounting into the process rather than leaving it to memory.
Apply thresholds, componentization and useful-life decisions the same way across projects, sites and periods.
Reconcile CIP to the general ledger on a monthly rhythm, with variances explained rather than carried.
Write the policy that the process can actually follow — short, specific, and with examples instead of restated standards.
Put names against the decisions and the triggers, so nothing depends on someone remembering.
Design project structures, stages and controls so the system enforces the process instead of documenting the exception.
CIP sits at the intersection of the largest number of functions and the smallest amount of shared accountability. Facilities commissions work. Procurement issues purchase orders. Project managers know when the work is done. Accounting knows how to capitalize. Tax cares about classification. Nobody, typically, has a standing obligation to tell anyone else when the state of a project has changed.
That gap produces the three findings that appear in nearly every CIP review: projects that never close, in-service dates set by convenience rather than readiness, and one asset line where there should have been forty.
None of that is negligence. It is the predictable result of a process whose handoffs were never designed. Which is also why it is fixable — with lifecycle stages that mean something, a placed-in-service policy with a name attached to it, componentization decided at project setup instead of project close, CIP aging in front of leadership every month, and monthly reconciliation instead of an annual reconstruction.
In-service dates reflect readiness for use, so book and tax lives begin where they should and every later transaction inherits a correct basis.
Open CIP represents work actually in progress, which makes budget-versus-actual analysis and variance identification possible.
Projects close as they finish, because someone owns the trigger and the system asks for it.
Consistent structures, documented policy and monthly reconciliation replace year-end evidence gathering.
Componentized assets have a cost basis to retire, so the register stops filling with equipment that no longer exists.
Replacement planning built on an accurate register produces decisions leadership can defend.
When the asset is ready and available for its intended use — not when the final invoice clears, not at a convenient month end, and not when the project manager gets around to signing off. The practical work is defining what 'ready and available' means for the project types you actually run, and giving the trigger to people who can see the work.
With an aging analysis that establishes what is genuinely open, and an owner for each remaining item. Clearing stale CIP requires a defensible basis for the in-service date and the asset breakdown, which usually means reconstructing the project from available evidence. The second half of the work is fixing the trigger, so the backlog does not rebuild.
It is decided at project setup for an hour, or reconstructed four years later from invoice PDFs for weeks. Componentization is what makes retirements, replacements and accurate tax treatment possible. A single large asset with one long life is wrong in several directions at once, and every one of them costs money.
Aging CIP, slow closeout, or capitalization that never quite lines up. Bring the balance you cannot explain and we will start there.
Fixed Asset Consultant • Founded by Angela Bolton • angela@fixedassetconsultant.com
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