Like many things QB does not make posting depreciation of an asset easy to do.

As a note here – my preference is to create a Fixed asset sub-account for each item. I do this so that the actual book value of the item can be easily determined. But you do not have to, you can buy your fixed assets and lump them all together in one account.

First you have to create two accounts:

Accumulated Depreciation-name – a fixed asset account (where -name is the name of the asset)
Depreciation Expense – an expense account

Then you have to determine the amount of annual depreciation you are allowed for that asset. You do that, or your tax guy does that, by classifying your asset according to the definitions in the IRS publication dealing with depreciation (Pub 946). Once the classification is clear, that leads you to a table which tells you what percentage of the item cost is allowable for each years depreciation over the useful life of the asset.

When you have the percentage figure, lets use 3.6%, You take the cost of the item and on your calculator, you multiply the cost times 0.036 (3.6%) and get the amount of annual depreciation allowed.

Then use the main menu Company>Make Journal Entries to bring up the general journal. You Debit the depreciation expense account for that amount, and credit the accumulated depreciation-name account for the same amount.

Then if you wish you can make the depreciation entries in the fixed asset list, assuming you have also entered the fixed asset in that list. The fixed asset list is just that, a list, nothing posts from or to it in terms of the financial accounts. (Unless you have the fixed asset manager installed in enterprise – so I understand)