Many businesses find assets tracking a tedious, boring, and confusing thing to do. There are some companies that are not even aware of asset tracking. If you’re too unfamiliar with the concept of asset tracking, then you are not alone. According to a survey, many companies used to track assets but just a few of them have got a real understanding of what exactly asset management is and what are the effective methods they can follow to keep a track on your company’s assets. To make you aware of the same, here's a look at the basics of asset tracking, how it benefits your business bottom line and how you can effectively implement smart digital asset management and IT asset management for your company.
Clarifying the Basics of Asset Management
Asset tracking refers to the process of documenting all your company's tangible and intangible assets. This includes: Office furniture, HVAC equipment, Carpet, Manufacturing equipment, Signs, Lighting, Break room appliances, Computers, Printers and copiers, IT equipment, Software licenses, and Safety equipment etc.
Asset tracking is the first step to determine the total cost of ownership for all the items-whether tangible or intangible present at your workplace.
Types of Assets that Need to be Tracked
Business activities need to be recorded as- tangible & intangible.
Tangible assets include business property and physical equipments like computers, infrastructure, vehicles etc. whereas intangible assets comprise of patents, goodwill, copyrights, brand recognition, patents, trademarks, trade names, website, and customer lists. Intangible business assets are worthier and have the ability to add to future growth prospects.
Barcodes or QR codes to track Physical Assets
All types of tools and equipment that are under the organization’s possession need to be tracked. This can be done by designing barcodes or QR codes for your physical assets. These asset tags can track your assets by letting you monitor who is using your asset and how.
Is tracking the Intangible Assets of the company possible?
Intangible assets like name & recognition have an infinite life. For instance, company’s goodwill, are not amortized and therefore cannot be tracked or appear on the company's balance sheet.
Benefits of Asset Tracking
A properly implemented effective asset management processes can bring in numerous benefits of asset tracking. Here, we have highlighted some of the most beneficial advantages of going for an asset tracking method for your business:
Real-time management
The Asset Tracking process comprises of a proper system to record asset movements that let you filter your data. This allows all information at one single place and avoids duplication in your system. A centralized system can be quickly and easily locate assets at any time and in real time.
Opportunities to scale
A cloud-based system allows you to upgrade your database as the business expands. Here, Asset tracking mechanism will prepare for the demand in advance and let you prepare for future growth as necessary.
Detect Malpractices
An efficient asset tracking not only helps reducing financial losses by resolving asset tracking problems but also detect malpractices into the system.
Trim Administrative Costs
With an automated Asset tracking system, you can eliminate the need for administrative professionals to track down your assets manually. This further reduces the chance of human error while saving you a lot of time spent on locating equipment. This increases organizational efficiency & staff productivity altogether.
Enhances Customer Service
Asset tracking improves customer service and overall management practice inside the premises. It directly benefits your well-stocked inventory, better-informed employees & an overall more efficient operation that in turn enhances your customer experience greatly.
Plan for Future Growth in Advance
An effective Asset Management helps you take a step ahead by identifying asset utilization trends & prepare you for your future growth in advance.
Maintaining Certifications
As a company, you have to be ensuring that all of your assets comply with the terms and conditions of their regulatory certifications. For this, you need to have an accurate database showing clear asset ownership information with all certifications & documentations. These regulatory compliance and certifications are better fulfilled by asset tracking.
Improved Efficiency & Accuracy
Asset Tracking ensures accountability and accuracy with asset loss and management. It provides valuable insight into the performance of your business’s physical spaces, office, warehouse, and storage. Now you better know where your assets are & how they are being utilized; thus helping in streamlining your business operations more efficiently & accurately.
Avoids Loss of Assets
You can track and reduce asset loss and utilize your assets more effectively with proper asset management. Equipment loss through theft or misplacement being a major problem, companies should implement a robust tracking system.
An asset tracking solution labels down all your tools and equipment with barcode or RFID technology. Once all your assets are tagged, you can see how and when your assets are being utilized. It allows tracking your ownership in case of unauthorized usage.
Avoids frequent equipment breakdowns
Several surveys indicate ageing equipment and lack of time to perform maintenance as the two main reasons for unscheduled downtime. Companies that face frequent equipment failures should be in a position to upgrade their service programs with the help of a automated tracking solution.
An automated asset tracking software helps in rigorous maintenance of your equipment. By using firms can reutilize repairs and maintenance of their equipment’s life cycle.
Effective Asset Management Methods
Managing assets for your business is not an easy task. With the various challenges that you face in managing your assets, there are few effective ways that can make your asset management process simpler & easier. Below, we have identified top ways you can implement to simplify your asset management ensuring the highest efficiency of your business.
1. Make a Reliable person be fully responsible for your assets
Controlling every single element of your business is a tedious job. Determining a reliable person who can be responsible for the company’s assets is one of the effective methods to be considered. This method works great for small businesses. But if you have a large company, consider hiring a full team that can be held responsible for managing and maintaining your company’s assets.
2. Figure out your asset life cycles
Figure out the life cycle of each of your assets, from the purchase to the disposal. Forecasting your assets life cycle will enable you to determine the best time to perform asset maintenance. Estimating the life cycle of your assets will easily allow you to make purchases (computers, infra & other IT equipment) more wisely in the long run.
3. Track your Assets on a Routine Basis
No routine tracking of your assets means a great financial loss to the company. You will probably be paying taxes for assets that already have depreciated or maintaining assets that are unnecessary. Keep a check on the assets you actually have that are meeting the demands of your customers or clients & the number of assets recorded in your books.
4. Understand the depreciation of your assets
Getting an understanding of the company's assets that are on a verge to depreciate is essential. One should know which assets are no longer suitable for use or are outdated, but still used by your employees etc. Since they may slow their work down, a regular depreciation tracking is necessary to identify such outdated items still used by the organization.
5. Implement an automated asset management solution (Recommended Method)
Since managing assets manually takes a lot of time, effort, and costs, having an automated system to do the work for you is the best & recommended method to choose. An automated asset management solution like an Asset Tracking Software, or Digital Asset Management Software or IT Asset Management Software are capable of optimizing your asset management such as asset value depreciation tracking, asset maintenance, contract management, cost analysis, and in-depth report generation. By automating your most complex part of asset management, you will be able to improve the efficiency, accuracy & productivity of your business overall.
Asset Tracking Method Big Giants Use Including Us
The most effective method to track assets followed by many big companies including us is the use of Asset Management Software.
Today equipments like computers, machines, software, and systems are increasingly common and they are expected to continue rising in the years to come. To keep them tracked, you require an automated asset management system. By investing in barcode scanning software, companies can track and audit their inventories easily.
Automated Asset Management Software System
The best part of an automated asset management system is that they will maintain your asset database updated in real-time. Any change in one page can easily have effect everywhere else. No fear of getting them stolen or misplaced.
Here are some benefits of adopting a digital Asset Management tool for tracking your tangible & intangible assets:
Track Everything at One Place
With a robust asset tracking software, your company can track any number of assets in one place. Each asset is demonstrated by a detailed profile that contains everything you need to know about that particular asset, including pictures, product guides & description, key contacts and contract terms.
Access Information Anywhere
Asset tracking solutions also include a mobile app that allows managers to validate asset information wherever they are, even if they're away from the office. You can search by owner, location, serial number or type, edit files, and take pictures of an asset, scan information via a barcode scanner just with the help of a smartphone.
Create Customized Reports
Asset tracking software allows you to generate reports of asset location, utilization and cost reports quickly and easily. You can include contract terms, lease or maintenance information in the reports and even set contract expiration notifications. In this way, a right asset tracking solution makes it easier to keep your assets secured and altogether.
Now, the question arises which software to be used?
Way to Select the Best IT Asset Management Software
On the web, you will find a number of different asset management software. These can be classified based on the types of assets that help to manage the following assets of a business:
- Infrastructure Asset Management Software; used to record physical infrastructure assets like roads, utilities, power generators, transport equipment, etc.; generally used by public organizations and large companies.
- Software Asset Management; used to manage purchase, upgrade, license renewal, and other aspects of the software applications within a company.
- Financial Asset Management Software; used to record the financial assets owned by the company. This may include: investment funds, securities, loans, and other financial assets.
- Physical Asset Management;used to manage all kinds of physical assets owned by a company; including computer equipment, light fixtures, tables, cabinets, and other physical assets.
Best Asset Management Software 2020 & Beyond
Among hundreds of Asset management system, we have listed a few that are highly popular & in demand in terms of features, utility, best features and price:
Spiceworks IT Asset Management Software- Monitor network licenses and devices, Manage licensing, network, exchange, etc., Report on inventory, assets, and licensing.
Snipe-IT- Monitor assets based on location, assignment, and status, Email alerts in case of expiring licenses, Asset auditing, Import and export assets, Generate QR code labels.
Asset Panda- Centralized asset management, Disaster recovery capabilities, customized reporting, Help desk module.
Go Codes- Built for small and medium-sized teams looking for a GPS-enabled asset tracking solution to manage their equipment on the go.
Mavenlink- powerful project-delivery system that helps automates project management, resource planning, and team collaboration.
If you are running a small business set up, we suggest you to try a free and open source asset tracking software.
Conclusion
Having a financial expert to manage your valuable assets is the best idea; especially when you're not aware of the working patterns of the market. With the best Asset Management Solution, you can get real-time reports on your assets and increase the accuracy of your asset management to a great extent.
The above article well demonstrated how an Automated Tracking System is the smart move taken to adjust the management strategy of your business tackling all asset tracking problems. We highly recommend choosing the right asset tracking system for your business. If you have already used any asset tracking software, don’t forget to post a review here!
