Kulumääratlemine

Kulumääratlemine, also known as depreciation in English, is an accounting method used to allocate the cost of a tangible asset over its useful life. This process reflects the decrease in an asset's value due to wear and tear, obsolescence, or usage. Instead of expensing the entire cost of an asset in the year it was purchased, businesses spread the cost over the periods it is expected to generate revenue.

There are several methods of kulumääratlemine, each with its own approach to calculating the annual expense. The straight-line method is the simplest, dividing the depreciable cost by the asset's useful life to arrive at an equal depreciation expense each year. Declining balance methods, such as the double-declining balance, result in higher depreciation expenses in the earlier years of an asset's life and lower expenses in later years. The sum-of-the-years'-digits method is another accelerated method that front-loads depreciation. Units-of-production is a method where depreciation is based on the asset's usage rather than time.

The purpose of kulumääratlemine is to match the expense of using an asset with the revenue it helps to generate. This provides a more accurate picture of a company's profitability. It also impacts a company's tax liability, as depreciation expense is a tax-deductible expense. The choice of depreciation method can affect net income and taxes reported in financial statements.