Accounting and asset management advice for government research organisation
- Case Study
23/07/2019
Brief
The UK Science & Technology Facilities Council needed to verify their assets, build a fixed asset register, apportion project capex to physical assets and confirm fair values for financial reporting. Their large-scale scientific facilities in the UK and Europe are used by more than 3,500 users each year, carrying out more than 2,000 experiments and generating around 900 publications. The facilities provide a range of research techniques using neutrons, muons, lasers and x-rays, and high performance computing and complex analysis of large data sets.
They also required the assets to be identified with a bar coded asset tag linked to the fixed asset register.
Work
With almost £100m of annual capex (FY2017/2018) meetings and presentations were arranged with each faculty and department to understand the nature and complexity of the assets.
8,000, often unique and complex R&D assets, located at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory, Chilbolton Laboratory, Baulby Underground Science Facility, Daresbury Laboratory and UK Astronomy Technology Centre were inspected, verified and valued.
Outcome
A comprehensive data set assets was provided with individual fair values to populate the fixed asset register and include in the opening balance sheet.
The identity tags enabled the accounting and operational records to be combined as the start of a wider asset management programme.
Testimonial
Our large-scale scientific facilities in the UK and Europe are used by more than 3,500 users each year, carrying out more than 2,000 experiments and generating around 900 publications. The facilities provide a range of research techniques using neutrons, muons, lasers and x-rays, and high performance computing and complex analysis of large data sets.
