The problem
After an acquisition, the valuation firm delivers fair values and remaining useful lives, and the new owner needs those pushed down into the fixed asset subledger. In Sage Fixed Assets that typically means new acquired values, new acquisition and placed-in-service dates, and new lives in the internal or GAAP book, while the tax books carry over unchanged.
Teams in this position regularly ask the Sage community whether a bulk update is possible, usually with five to twenty thousand assets in front of them. The answer they get is that book fields can't be updated globally, and the options offered are editing each asset, paying Sage's services team, or exporting each book and rebuilding everything into a new company.
How we load purchase accounting values
We map the valuation file to your assets, usually by system number or company asset ID, and resolve the assets that don't match before anything changes: items the appraiser grouped, items the subledger splits, and items one side has that the other doesn't. Then we agree on the effective date for the new basis, which books change, and the depreciation method the new basis will use.
The Critical Field Updater writes the new values into the books you choose and leaves the rest untouched. You receive a reconciliation from the valuation total to the subledger total, and a before-and-after report by book for the audit file. Because the assets stay in the same company with their history, your prior-period reports still run.
What usually comes with it
- Setting up or clearing a custom book for the new GAAP basis while keeping legacy internal reporting.
- Merging the acquired entity's Sage company into the buyer's, or splitting assets out of it. See merging companies and splitting company data.
- Aligning asset classes, GL accounts and useful-life policy to the new owner's standards.
How the work is delivered
There are two ways to use the Critical Field Updater. Most clients start with a done-for-you project: you send the asset list and the new values, we agree on the effective-date rule for each group of assets, run a validation pass, make the changes, and hand back a before-and-after report by book that your team and your auditors can tie out. Clients who face these changes every quarter can run the same tool themselves through FAHA, our fixed asset platform, which connects to Sage Fixed Assets and keeps an audit trail of every change and who approved it.
Either way, every project starts with a full company backup in Sage Fixed Assets, and nothing is written until the validation report has been reviewed by a person on your side.
Frequently asked questions
Do the tax books change?
Only if you want them to. In most stock acquisitions the tax basis carries over, so we update the GAAP or internal book and leave federal, state and AMT books as they are.
Do we need a new Sage company for the new basis?
Usually not. Updating the existing company keeps history and prior-period reporting intact. Where a clean break is required, we can build the new company and carry the history alongside it.
What if the valuation groups assets differently from our subledger?
That is common. Part of the project is the mapping: allocating group values to individual assets, or summarizing assets to match the appraisal, with the method documented for your auditors.
How long does it take?
It depends mostly on how clean the mapping is. Send the asset count, number of companies and the valuation format with your quote request and we will give you a timeline.