what is furniture fixtures and equipment ff e 
furniture fixtures and equipment abbreviated as ff e or ffe refers to movable furniture fixtures or other equipment that have no permanent connection to the structure of a building these items which include desks chairs computers electronic equipment tables bookcases and partitions typically depreciate substantially over their long term use but are nevertheless important costs to consider when valuing a company especially during liquidation events 1these items are sometimes referred to as furniture fixtures and accessories ff a investopedia eliana rodgersfurniture fixtures and equipment explainedan asset is classified as ff e if it s used by a business for normal daily operations for example an office receptionist relies on their desk chair telephone computer desk organizer and pen holder to conduct routine activities throughout the normal course of doing business accountants categorize ff e as tangible assets under separate line items on financial statements and other budgeting documents the ff e balance is then added into a project s total costs to determine if an initiative comes in over or under budget real world example of ff e accounting treatmentaccountants spread the acquisition costs of ff e items over time by steadily depreciating their values over their lives but to accomplish this accountants must first correctly determine the useful life of each item based on irs guidelines although ff e items typically have useful lives of one year or more they may vary substantially from one item to the next for example while a desktop computer may be deemed technologically outdated after three years according to the irs it has a useful life of five years on the contrary the irs assigns office furniture a useful life of seven years 2security equipment such as x ray scanners may be considered ff e because these items may be removed from a building s premises and placed elsewhere real world example of ff e depreciationlet s assume a new car is worth 10 000 and it has a useful life of five years according to the irs 2 let s further assume that the vehicle s maximum salvage value is 20 when a company first buys the car it records the monthly depreciation charge as follows the depreciation charge is 133 33 at the end of the first month the net book value of the car is calculated as the difference between the original book value and the amount of its accumulated depreciation over its useful life 1