Assets

Assets is where you build and maintain the physical asset base of a Capex Strategy project. Every machine, building and installation you want to plan for is registered here, organised into a tree that mirrors your business, and given a value and a replacement schedule. From that single set of data Weissr generates the investment plans, the Investment Map and the capex that flows into the cash flow model. This page covers how assets are organised, what each asset field means, and how to create, edit and retire assets in Asset Mapping.

What is the Assets area?

The Assets area holds one set of asset data and presents it in several ways. Understanding which part does what saves a lot of hunting.

How are assets organised?

Assets sit at the bottom of a tree that describes both your organisation and your equipment. The organisational levels come from the project Scope; the asset-holding levels are created below the sub-industry.

Some values are set at one level and used further down. Country and currency are set on the Site and inherited by everything beneath it. Tax depreciation years default from the Site. The smaller capex percentage is applied against gross asset value at the level where it is configured.

👉 Scope covers the organisational levels, how to add them and what country and currency control.

Asset field reference

Every asset row is described by the fields below. The same fields appear as columns in Asset Mapping and Asset Ledger, and as columns in the Excel import file.

Working in Asset Mapping

Asset Mapping is the grid where asset data is entered and maintained. Each row is one asset. Rows are grouped under a caption showing the organisational path, for example Division - Middle level - Site - Sub-industry, so you can always see which part of the business you are looking at.

How do I create a category?

1. Open Assets and select the Asset Mapping view.

2. In the navigation tree, stand on the sub-industry node the category belongs to.

3. Click + at the top of the tree, enter a name, and press Enter.

How do I add an asset?

1. Open the alternative you want to work in: Base Alternative, a Strategic Building Block or a Strategic Alternative.

2. Open Assets and select the Asset Mapping view.

3. Navigate to the right place in the tree: Division > Site > Sub-industry > Category.

4. Fill in the mandatory fields: Category, Name, Amount, In use year and Replacement year.

5. Optionally set a subcategory, Standard life, Tax depreciation years or a Description.

6. Press Enter to save.

How do I edit an asset?

1. Navigate to the asset in the tree.

2. Double-click the cell you want to change.

3. Enter the new value and press Enter.

Changes are reflected automatically in the Asset Ledger, the Investment Plan, the Investment Map and the cash flow model.

How do I choose which columns to show?

1. Click Columns above the grid.

2. Tick or untick the columns you want to show or hide.

Six columns are fixed and always visible. Column choices are personal, so they do not change the view for anyone else.

Can I copy and paste from Excel?

Yes. Asset Mapping supports copy and paste in Excel format, which is the quickest way to move a handful of rows. Two limits apply: you cannot paste above sub-industry level, and you cannot paste across nodes that use different currencies. For anything larger than a handful of rows, use the Excel import instead.

👉 Asset Data Import from Excel covers bulk creation and update, including the column reference and the import strategies.

How do I export the Asset Mapping?

1. Navigate to the node whose data you want to export: Division > Site > Sub-industry > Category.

2. Click Export in the top right corner of the grid.

3. Select the format you need.

Retiring and replacing assets

How do I retire a single asset?

Retiring an asset stops it generating outlays from a chosen year onward, including all of its future reinvestments. This is how closures are modelled.

1. Navigate to the asset in Asset Mapping.

2. Double-click the cell in the Retired year column.

3. Enter the retirement year and press Enter.

Scroll right in the grid to check the result: the asset should stop generating reinvestments from that year onward.

How do I create a replacement asset?

When only part of an asset needs replacing ahead of the rest, model that part as its own asset rather than distorting the parent asset's schedule.

1. Stand on a sub-industry or category node in the tree.

2. Click any cell of the asset you want to copy and select Copy.

3. Rename the copy and adjust its amount, in use year and replacement year to reflect the replacement.

How do assets behave across alternatives?

Assets exist inside an alternative: the Base Alternative (BA), a Strategic Building Block (SBB) or a Strategic Alternative (SA). The grid shows you what has been changed relative to the base.

• Rows changed in an SBB or SA are colour-coded so you can see at a glance what differs from the Base Alternative.

• Deleting an asset in an alternative strikes the row through rather than removing it, and a deleted or modified asset can be restored.

• A retired year propagated from a higher node is shown with an origin indicator, so you can tell inherited retirement from retirement set on the asset itself.

• An asset can only be renamed in the alternative where it was created. Rename it in the Base Alternative if it was created there.

• Bulk deletion asks you to confirm, and lists the alternatives the deletion will affect.

Spreading an amount over several years

By default the full asset amount lands in a single year: the in use year for the original investment, and the replacement year for each reinvestment. For large projects that are built over several years, an Asset amount distribution (AAD) spreads the amount across a range of years relative to that anchor year.

Three approaches are available:

• Single year, the default. The full amount falls in the in use year.

• Manual distribution. You enter the amount for each year yourself.

• Predefined distribution. An administrator defines a named percentage split that you select from the Distribution type column. For example, a Standard 3-year project distribution might place 10% in year -2, 30% in year -1, 50% in year 0 and 10% in year +1.

How do I apply a distribution to an asset?

1. Open Assets and select the Asset Mapping view, then navigate to the asset.

2. In the Distribution type column, click the dropdown arrow on the asset's row.

3. Select a predefined distribution, or choose Manual to set your own split.

4. Click Yes in the confirmation dialog.

5. For a manual distribution, double-click the asset's Amount. A window opens showing the in use year highlighted with the total amount. Enter the portion you want in each year, and make sure the amounts add up to the full asset amount.

6. Click Save. The amount cell then becomes read-only.

👉 Asset Amount Distribution covers the rules and how administrators create predefined distributions.

How do assets connect to the cash flow model?

Assets reach the financial model through their category, and the connection is made in the Scope tab rather than in Assets. One asset category links to one cash flow block type, and the block types themselves are created by a Weissr administrator.

👉 Connecting assets to the cash flow model covers connecting and disconnecting blocks, and what to watch out for before deleting a site.

Modelling guidance for Capex Strategy projects

This section describes how Weissr approaches asset mapping in a consultancy project. It is working practice rather than something the system enforces, and nothing prevents you from using Asset Mapping differently.

Which assets should be mapped?

• Focus on assets with a replacement value above roughly 0.5 to 1 million. Capex below that threshold is captured automatically as a percentage of gross asset value.

• Assume the current products, and the current way of producing them, continue into the future.

The three questions to ask about each asset

Each asset is assessed through three questions, and they do not need the same level of precision.

The "as is going concern" principle

The outlays in the Base Alternative should reflect the business as it stands, carried forward. Investments for each asset should:

• Include capex for safety and environmental compliance over time.

• Include capex for maintaining current equipment over time.

• Include capex for upgrades that keep quality high enough for the current customer base.

• Include only capex that had already been decided at the time of the exercise.

• Exclude speculative capex for capacity or volume expansion.

Expansion cases and other forward-looking scenarios belong in Strategic Building Blocks and Strategic Alternatives, not in the Base Alternative.

Related pages

👉 Asset Ledger and Investment Plan, for reading the asset base, reordering assets, retiring a whole category, and the horizontal and vertical investment plans.

👉 Investment Map, for the graphical view of the investment need per year.

👉 Asset Data Import from Excel, for bulk creating and updating assets.

👉 Scope, for the organisational levels above the assets.