In accounting, writing off is the expensing of a balance sheet asset (item) that has no future benefits. An example would be the writing off of goodwill. That is, the worthless asset will be recorded as an expense on the current period's income statement rather than keeping it on the balance sheet as an asset.

Similar to a write off is a write down. This is a partial write off. Only part of the value of the asset is removed from the balance sheet.