When a company buys an asset they have to spread the cost of the
asset over it's useful economic lifetime, this is done with
depreciation.
The accumulated depreciation is the depreciation from previous
years and the charge for the year is the amount being depricated
that year, which will be charged to the profit and loss.
The assets will shows as a debit balance while depreciation will
show as a credit balance in the balance sheet. When charge the
depreciation for the year you would credit the balance sheet and
debit the profit and loss. So after the asset has come to the end
of it's useful economic lifetime the value in the balance sheet
will become zero or close to it as the credits of depreciation will
cancel out the debit if the asset value.