Fixed asset tracking tool: How can it benefit your business?
The potential to save money from having an improved fixed asset management is often ignored. It is not easy to find the time and tools to give much-needed attention to fixed assets. A sound fixed asset management system can result in considerable tax savings via depreciation deductions. On the flip side, lack of optimal fixed asset management practices can actually question the accuracy of financial reports. This eventually has a negative impact on the bottom line. Implementing a fixed asset tracking software pays off not only in cost savings but productivity and efficiency as well.
Every year companies lose thousands of dollars because they are not properly tracking their fixed assets – which represent a large part of their investment. When you don’t know the exact status and location of your fixed assets, it is easy for them to get stolen or lost. It can then result in lost productivity, wasted cost (replacing missing assets) and time lost in locating them. It sure is challenging to maintain accurate, up-to-date and complete asset records of fixed assets/ Say, that can be maintenance equipment, furniture, laptops, cell phones, and vehicles.
Leveraging an asset tracking software in order to manage assets and the associated data allows you to streamline asset management. It gives you more insight into your asset data, minimize costs and eventually simplifies your workflows.
5 ways fixed asset tracking software helps to save money
1. It eliminates ghost assets and fosters accuracy
Establishing an accurate and solid baseline is important. If you start off with faulty numbers, your numbers are going to be always faulty. Do not trust the old system. You should go back to your physical inventory to make sure each and every asset is cataloged and done correctly. This also involves getting rid of ghost assets. They are assets that are on the books but they are no longer the company’s property. This happens if the asset is stolen, broken or sold – but not recorded in your books.
Fixed assets take up a lot of space on corporate balance sheets and represent huge company investments. Say, if 10 to 20 percent of fixed assets recorded in the books are ghosts assets, then you are overpaying insurance and taxes by 20 percent. This not only negatively impacts the bottom line but also causes tremendous inaccuracies in fixed asset reports. This results in the overall inaccuracy of corporate financials. It threatens the position of executives who are responsible for maintaining compliance standards.
It is here that the fixed asset tracking software helps your company step up and radiate accuracy throughout your company. When your assets are tagged with RFID tags or barcode labels, they can be scanned automatically helping you track them successfully from acquisition to disposal. This software solution lets multiple users access and update asset records in real-time – and that too in one single comprehensive database which eliminates inaccuracies. No need for multiple and messy spreadsheets raising havoc on your company’s accounts!
2. It helps you make informed decisions and monitor asset lifecycle
Unproductive assets can certainly build upon your costs when they disrupt the flow of your business operations. This is the reason asset lifecycle management is very important. It involves monitoring, controlling and accounting for business assets throughout their lifecycle. This is done along with recording and tracking everything the asset have been through from acquisition to disposal. Preserving the entire history of assets allows you to better plan acquisition of new assets. It also helps you to make informed replacements when required and monitor asset utilization.
Timely maintenance and repair can save you money
When you have the required data like how frequently parts are replaced, how many times in a month an asset requires servicing, how often it is used, how regularly you have to maintain it; then, you can effectively plan for its replacement. It also helps to reduce sudden downtimes which might require emergency repair, costing you two or even three times more than the usual. Fixed asset tracking software allows you to actively monitor devaluation of assets and closely monitor them at all times.
Read more: All You Need To Know: Retiring Assets Through Fixed Asset Management Software
3. It enables you to work smarter with smartphones
Dedicated handheld barcode scanners and mobile computers have been used to manage and track assets recently. However, with the saturation of smartphones in enterprises today, it is about time that outdated hardware is going to go extinct. Smartphones are quickly replacing scanners not just because they are a cheaper option but also because they are multifunctional. Fixed asset tracking software comes with an app that helps companies to cut maintenance and hardware costs associated with scanners.
Smartphones happen to be a great replacement for expensive scanners
Deploy smartphones as QR code and barcode scanners in order to track your employees and assets globally – while you manage all your data in the cloud. Since all your employees have a smartphone, why not put it to good use! Why invest in buying scanners for so many of your employees? You can schedule tasks and monitor if the tasks are being completed on time, no matter where you are. This also means that you don’t have to pay for other apps to organize your data or manage audits.
Read more: How Can Fixed Asset Management Software Barcode Feature Help Your Business
4. It brings accuracy in depreciation tracking
When you don’t track asset depreciation properly, your company ends up overpaying for both insurance and taxes. Fixed asset management software allows you to make an accurate calculation of depreciation. Even small mistakes in asset depreciation can cost you big amounts of money. In addition to this, it also results in violations of regulatory compliance. This particularly holds true for companies that work with government grants or funds. Companies definitely have to report to their investors or board members if they are not required to report fixed assets to the government.
Fixed assets are a major part of any company’s investment. Any errors in depreciation have an impact to distort the accuracy of the larger financial picture. Inaccurate corporate financial reports can actually become the basis for criminal liability when auditing firms and executives. It is imperative that fixed assets must be managed using a robust system like fixed asset tracking software.
Read more: Benefits of Tracking Depreciation in Fixed Asset Management Tool
5. It empowers you to increase productivity at your workplace
Employees roaming around from room to room, department to department, one branch to another looking for required assets is a very common sight. With an asset tracking application, you can keep track of how many different assets keep moving through your departments. You can even track assets as they leave or arrive at a specific location in real-time. This saves working hours of your employees. If your employee wastes an hour every day looking for assets, you are losing thousands of dollars every month. After all, time is money!
A time-efficient solution frees your employees from menial tasks and lets them focus on more important areas of your business. This contributes well to your bottom line. Secondly, this automation also means that you don’t need a lot of people to manually check and log the movements of your assets. Hiring fewer employees means that you again get to save your valuable money and invest it in other productive areas.
Share queries regarding our fixed asset tracking software
By using EZOfficeInventory, small firms can track locations of their assets all the time everywhere. While this is tough to do manually, a cloud-based fixed asset tracking software small business makes this job easier for you.
EZOfficeInventory is a fixed asset inventory tracking software designed to cater to small businesses and organizations to help them run smooth work operations and generate higher revenues.
For more assistance, drop us an email at support@ezo.io.
