What is the journal entry for sale of a fixed asset, including payoff of a mortgage loan and net gain on the transaction? You can dispose of the asset before or after entering the sale transactions.The only difference is which accounts you post to. The accountant first must update the depreciation account for the asset to make it current to the date of sale. The journal entry to record the purchase is shown here. When we're talking about the gain or loss of the sale of an asset we need to be looking at net book value at the time of the sale. This entry has several steps to account for the updates to your portfolio. It removes the property from your balance sheet, clears its accumulated depreciation. Learn the foundations of fixed asset accounting, including definitions, formulas, and applications.