DEPRECIATION Definition

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DEPRECIATION is the amount of expense charged against earnings by a company to write off the cost of a plant or machine over its useful live, giving consideration to wear and tear, obsolescence, and salvage value. If the expense is assumed to be incurred in equal amounts in each business period over the life of the asset, the depreciation method used is straight line (SL). If the expense is assumed to be incurred in decreasing amounts in each business period over the life of the asset, the method used is said to be accelerated. Two commonly used variations of the accelerated method of depreciating an asset are the sum-of-years digits (SYD) and the double-declining balance (DDB) methods. Frequently, accelerated depreciation is chosen for a business tax expense but straight line is chosen for its financial reporting purposes.

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ASSET BACKED SECURITY is a debt instrument collateralized by credit card receivables, auto loans or other assets and securitized by a bank or financial institution. To reduce the possibility of a disruption in principal and interest payments, the cash flow from these assets is enhanced by a variety of methods including letter of credit support, insurance, overcollateralization and excess interest.

FIXED CHARGE is those expenses incurred each time a batch of product is produced. Primarily consists of ordering cost for the raw material, engineering costs for machine setup and preparation for the production run, and work order processing cost; also known as SETUP COST.

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