Using Microsoft Excel's Straight-line and Sum-of-the-years Digits Depreciation Functions

Analyzing real estate investments? Making book depreciation calculations? Microsoft Excel can help. Excel's SLN, or straight-line depreciation, function lets you easily calculate standard straight-line depreciation amounts. And Excel's SYD, or sum-of-the-years-digits, function lets you easily calculate standard sum of the year's digits depreciation.

Excel provides handy depreciation functions for making straight-line depreciation calculations (which are typically used for real estate depreciation) and for making sum-of-the-years-digits depreciation calculations (which may be used for book depreciation.). As you might expect, both are straight-forward to use and easy to understand.

Straight-line Depreciation calculations with the SLN function

The SLN function calculates straight-line balance depreciation for an asset given the cost, its salvage value, and its estimated economic life. The DDB function uses the following syntax:

SLN (cost, salvage, life)

Suppose, for example, that you must calculate the straight-line depreciation for equipment that costs $50,000, lasts five years, will have a salvage value of $10,000 at the end of the fifth year. To calculate the depreciation for the first year, you use the following formula:

=SLN (50000,10000,5)

The function returns the value 8000.00. To calculate the depreciation for the second year, you use the same formula because straight-line depreciation is the same for each year period.

Sum-of-the-Years-Digits Depreciation calculations with the SYD function

The SYD function calculates sum-of-the-years-digits depreciation for an asset given the cost, its salvage value, estimated economic life, and the accounting period for which depreciation is being calculated. The SYD function uses the following syntax:

SYD (cost, salvage, life, period)

Suppose, for example, that you must calculate the sum-of-the-years-digits depreciation for equipment that costs $50,000, lasts five years, and will have a salvage value of $10,000 at the end of the fifth year. To calculate the depreciation for the first year, use the following formula:

=SYD (50000,10000,5,1)

The function returns the value 13333.33. To calculate the depreciation for the second year, you use the formula

=SYD (50000,10000,5,2)

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