Zoho Sheet SLN: Straight-Line Depreciation and Monthly Schedules

• Introduced: The original introduction release and date are not established by the checked sources.
• Availability: Currently documented in Zoho Sheet’s rolling web-service help; no numbered release or retirement endpoint is established.
• Scope: English-language web-service documentation. Exact mobile and offline-client parity is not established here.
• Checked: October 14, 2026, against the official SLN reference. Documentation and independent financial models; no native Zoho Sheet test.

=SLN(original_cost; salvage_value; lifetime)

All three arguments are required. Original cost is the initial asset amount, salvage value is its value at the end of depreciation, and lifetime is the number of periods. There is no optional year or period-index argument: SLN calculates the same charge for each equal period in the simple model.

The mathematical check is (original_cost-salvage_value)/lifetime. Lifetime determines the unit of the answer. A life of 5 years gives a yearly charge; a life of 60 months gives a monthly charge. Changing a cell’s date or currency display does not convert years into months.

The examples below use nonnegative amounts with cost greater than salvage and positive lifetimes. The short reference does not establish all unusual cost/salvage relationships or fractional-life behavior.

Create a blank sheet named AssetCharges. Use A1:F1 for Asset, Cost, Salvage, Life in years, SLN charge and Arithmetic check. Enter A2:D5:

Enter =SLN(B2;C2;D2) in E2 and =(B2-C2)/D2 in F2. Fill E2:F2 through row 5. The extra lifetime in row 4 spreads the same 20000 depreciable amount over twice as many years; it does not double the total depreciation.

For a literal control using the values in Zoho’s argument descriptions, put =SLN(50000;35000;6) in H2. The independently calculated answer is 2500. This control supplies every input explicitly instead of asking you to reconstruct an embedded example’s unseen cells.

Keep AssetCharges intact. Create another sheet named AnnualSchedule, with four columns headed Year, Charge, Opening value and Closing value. Enter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in A2:A6.

Put =SLN(24000;4000;5) in B2 and fill to B6. Enter 24000 in C2 and =C2-B2 in D2. In C3 enter =D2, in D3 enter =C3-B3, then fill C3:D3 through row 6.

Put =SUM(B2:B6) in B8; expect 20000. D6 equals the specified salvage of 4000. Use the original cost and life on each SLN call; substituting the declining book value as a new cost would produce a different calculation.

SLN does not stop a fill-down automatically at the end of an asset’s life. Restrict the schedule to the intended five periods rather than continuing the same charge indefinitely.

Create a separate sheet named MonthlySchedule. Put Month, Unrounded charge and Closing value in A1:C1. Enter 1 in A2 and =A2+1 in A3; fill A3 through A61 to obtain months 1–60.

Put =SLN(24000;4000;60) in B2 and fill through B61. Every independent charge is 333.333333333…. Enter =24000-B2 in C2 and =C2-B3 in C3, then fill C3 through C61. At month 12, C13 should be 20000 mathematically; at month 60, C61 should be 4000. In E2 put =SUM(B2:B61); expect 20000.

Showing B to two decimals does not itself change the stored charge. A separate policy that actually posts 333.33 each month has different arithmetic. In E4 enter =333.33*60; expect 19999.80, which is 0.20 short of the full depreciable amount.

A balancing final-month illustration is =20000-59*333.33 in E5, giving 333.53. In E6 enter =59*333.33+E5; expect 20000. This is a separate rounding-policy calculation, not a claim that SLN automatically adjusts its last result or selects an accounting policy for you.

Zoho’s error table associates #DIV/0 with a lifetime that is not given. The arithmetic denominator also explains why a zero lifetime is unusable, but the page does not specify every distinct zero, blank, text or invalid-input outcome. Supply a positive, explicit period count rather than treating an omitted life as a default.

Cost, salvage and life are assumptions, not conclusions supplied by SLN. The function does not determine a tax-approved schedule, partial-year convention, impairment amount or disposal rule. Keep any such policy separate from the formula demonstration.

SYD allocates more of the depreciable amount to earlier periods. SUM provides the total check above. Straight-line charges remain constant in this model even though the book value decreases each period.