Tax depreciation schedule software for quantity surveyors
A depreciation schedule turns an investment property into two lists: plant and equipment items depreciated over their effective lives, and the capital works deduction on the structure. The inspection is an inventory — every oven, split system and blind, with its location and condition — plus the construction details needed to estimate the building cost. Missing a ceiling fan in the field is a deduction the investor never claims.
Built for quantity surveyors running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Depreciation schedule
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Depreciation schedule
Appendix A — Plant and equipment schedule (extract)
- Property
- Unit 4, 18 Sample Parade
- Settlement
- 22 August 2025
- Use
- Residential rental
| Asset | Location and qty | Division |
|---|---|---|
| Split system air conditioner | Living, Bed 1 · 2 | Division: Div 40 |
| Electric cooktop | Kitchen · 1 | Division: Div 40 |
| Ceramic floor tiling | Wet areas · 22 m² | Division: Div 43 |
| Hot water system (heat pump) | Laundry · 1 | Division: Div 40 |
| Kitchen cupboards and benchtops | Kitchen · 1 set | Division: Div 43 |
Fields captured on site
Your firm builds the form in-app, so these are a starting point rather than a fixed schema. Every field is captured on the device, with or without signal, and lands in the depreciation schedule where your template puts it.
Per asset
- Asset description
- Room or location
- Quantity
- Condition and estimated age
- Division 40 or Division 43 classification
Building
- Construction type and floor area
- Year of construction and major renovations
- Owner-supplied cost or contract details
Ownership
- Purchase and settlement dates
- New or previously used residential property
- Common property share (strata)
Standards the report works to
- ITAA 1997 Div 40Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 — Capital allowances
- Governs the decline in value of each plant and equipment item on the schedule.
- ITAA 1997 Div 43Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 — Capital works
- Governs the deduction for the building structure and qualifying renovations.
- TR 2022/1Income tax: effective life of depreciating assets
- The Commissioner’s effective life tables each asset’s life is taken from.
Load the standards you hold into your reference library and the drafted prose is written against them rather than against a general model.
How the depreciation schedule gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the tax depreciation inspection form in-app — 25 field types, nesting repeatable groups, compound AND/OR visibility rules, reusable modules and calculated fields. Field capture works with no signal: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio all queue in an idempotent outbox that only clears once the server confirms receipt.
Link it to your the subject property and its improvements
Enter the subject property and its improvements once, as a register. Every one of your comparable sales and adjustment lines then points at a stored row rather than a name somebody typed — and the links survive a disconnected device.
Render your own template
The depreciation schedule renders into the Word template you already use — your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with conditionals, loops over repeats, composable sub-templates and photo grids.
Reviewed before it leaves
You write the review framework: a checklist of what a depreciation schedule must contain, plus the prose standards you would mark a junior against. Link it to a report template and it runs every time that template renders. Each finding comes back graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault, and a person accepts or dismisses every one.
Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review is a comparison rather than a proofread: The report describes a four-bedroom dwelling; the inspection form recorded three.
Checks a valuation framework usually carries
- Every section the panel instruction requires appears, in the required order
- Each adjustment traces to a comparable that is listed in the evidence
- The reconciliation supports the figure actually adopted
- Instruction basis, assumptions and disclaimers are stated in full
Questions
- Can the inspector photograph each asset as they log it?
- Yes. Each asset row carries its own photo field, and the template can lay those photos out as a grid in an appendix grouped by room.
- Does it handle the 2017 rules for second-hand residential assets?
- You can capture the acquisition date and whether the dwelling was previously used, and use template conditionals to switch in your wording on non-deductible existing assets. The tax treatment is still the surveyor’s call.
- Can an apartment’s share of common property be captured?
- A strata section can record the lot entitlement and common property assets separately, so they appear in their own part of the schedule.
What this is not
Worth knowing before you book a demo, so neither of us wastes the half hour.
- Not field-service dispatch. No timesheets, no parts, no inventory. Scheduling exists to get an inspector to a site.
- No signature capture. If your deliverable has to carry a signed sign-off on the artefact itself, this is not the tool yet.
- Field capture is what works offline — jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio. Reports, chat, scheduling and the inbox need a connection.
- No client portal. Reports go out as a file or a password-protected link.
Other valuation work we cover
- Plant and equipment valuationsP&E valuation report
- Quantity surveying progress claimsProgress claim report
- Residential property valuationsValuation report
- Rural property valuationsRural valuation report
- Stamp duty valuationsDuty valuation report
- Antique and collectable appraisalsAppraisal report
- Business asset valuationsAsset valuation report
- Commercial property valuationsCommercial valuation report
Other disciplines
Rebuild your depreciation schedule in SurveyThanks
Bring the Word template you already send clients. If you are coming off another field-forms tool, a filled report can be uploaded, read field by field, and re-rendered into your template.