Low-value is about the type of asset, not the price. Vans are never low-value.

If you are planning to keep a vehicle fleet off the balance sheet under the new FRS 102 rules, read this before you file.

The same line comes up again and again from finance teams: "We'll use the low-value exemption for anything under £5,000."

That is IFRS 16 thinking. It is not FRS 102.

Under the revised Section 20 the low-value exemption (paragraph 20.5(b)) is judged on the type of asset, and the standard gives examples of assets that would not be of low value whatever they cost (paragraph 20.11):

• cars, vans, buses, coaches, trams, trucks and lorries;
• cranes, excavators, loaders and bulldozers;
• telehandlers and forklifts;
• tractors, harvesters and related attachments;
• boats and ships, railway rolling stock, aircraft and aero engines;
• land and buildings;
• production line equipment.

The test is not "is this asset cheap?" The assessment is made on an absolute basis, and the value of the lease payments has no bearing on it (paragraph 20.9). The question is whether the asset is of a kind that could be low-value when new.

So the fleet of twelve delivery vans on a four-year contract: every one of them goes on the balance sheet as a right-of-use asset with its own schedule.

If the low-value route was expected to reduce the Section 20 workload, the transition plan needs revisiting.