When the number of items of same type of industrial property is quite large, calculating depreciation for a group of such item may be more efficient than depreciating each item separately. Also, predicting the service life of a specific individual unit is very difficult to do with any degree of accuracy. Estimating the probable average service life (PASL) of many units (or dollars) is not an easy task; however, an average life of many units can probably be predicted with a much higher degree of accuracy than the life of some particular unit. Using the average of many units allows for some units having relatively short lives and some units having relatively long lives without specifying whether a particular unit will have a short or a long life. If the life of each vintage in an account are not estimated, then the broad group procedure can be used. The broad group procedure depreciates the several vintage in an account as a single group. The PASL for this procedure is the estimate of the average of lives of the individual dollars in the group. If the estimated PASL’s of the vintages are not the same, then a weighted average PASL would have to be calculated for each calendar year. In this paper, we illustrate the calculations of accrual rates and the annual depreciation charge for each of the calendar years by the broad group depreciation procedure.

Several different depreciation systems may be used for group depreciation. The vintage group procedure treats the same type of property placed in service during the same year as a distinct group for depreciation purposes; therefore an estimate of the probable average service life and net salvage ratio(s) of each individual vintage is necessary. The vintage group procedure calculates an accrual rate for each vintage and the accrual rate for an account for specific calendar year is the weighted average vintage accrual rate for that calendar year. A further refinement would be to divide each vintage into groups such that all of the dollars in a group have the same estimated life-an equal life group (ELG). Then each ELG is depreciated over its estimated life. The effect is to recover each dollar over the estimated number of years it is in service. Each vintage is divided into several equal life groups (ELGs) such that all the property in a specific ELG has the same estimated life. The accrual rate for each ELG is based on the estimated life of that ELG. The vintage accrual rate for a specific year is the weighted average ELG accrual rate for that calendar year. In this paper, we illustrate the calculations of vintage accrual rates for each of the calendar years by the ELG depreciation systems.

When the number of items of same type of industrial property is quite large, calculating depreciation for a group of such items may be more efficient than depreciating each item separately. Several different depreciation systems may be used for group depr

Depreciation accounting has as its main objective, the recovery of the original cost of plant investment less net salvage, over the estimated useful life of that plant. Accuracy of the whole life technique in meeting this objective depends entirely on the