An enterprise is created with the objective of managing its resources to obtain the maximum return on investment. The resources are people, machinery, intellectual property, buildings, land, and various other items. These items are collectively called assets.

People as assets are managed by an HR system that tracks their productivity and costs related to them. The other assets cannot be managed in the same way and need a different approach to track. This is done in E-Business Suite by fixed assets (or Oracle Assets).

Assets can be of two types, tangible and intangible.

Tangible assets can be segregated into two major classes, current and fixed. Current assets comprise the following: