Do you have a lot of physical assets at your workplace? Maybe there’s a lot of IT equipment circulating across departments, or a fleet of company vehicles that are somehow always out when you need a ride! Perhaps you have to take care of items that are always used together, like gear for a photoshoot or a tool-set for construction projects.
How does one keep track of all these items with minimal effort? Sure, you could manage items through a spreadsheet, painstakingly drafting in associations and trying to update static groupings by hand each time. This would take a lot of time, however, and would be far from efficient.
Let’s see how this would pan out if your go-to management tool were spreadsheets.
Someone at your studio takes out AV equipment for a project. You know which items would normally be checked out for this kind of project, so you’d rifle through pages of documentation finding all the different equipment.
There’s no way to define such rules in a spreadsheet, so maybe a couple of those items have already been checked out individually to someone else. Perhaps some of the other equipment is damaged and needs to be sent into maintenance immediately – something that wasn’t flagged up when the item was returned.
So now you’re spending additional time looking for alternatives because of the lack of a centralized system enforcing company policy around asset management.
By the time you’ve found all the right equipment, changed its status, and updated custodianship, you’d have wasted precious time and effort, and would have a host of new responsibilities that really should have been automated in the first place, like checking items into maintenance, or adding laborious detail to a spreadsheet from scratch.
This is where asset tracking software comes in handy. Using such a tool, you should be able to organize assets in a straightforward yet dynamic way. This means that the system would understand the rules you have around checkouts and check-ins, and would cut back on the effort required to enforce them through intelligent automation.
So without further ado, let’s see 3 high-powered ways you can organize assets using asset tracking software!
1. Groups
Categorizing items into groups seems like an obvious management trick, but there’s a world of difference between doing it with asset tracking software or through a spreadsheet.
With the software, you don’t just identify items as belonging to a specific group, but also treat those groups as autonomous bodies when you’re making decisions on depreciation, for example, or drawing up reports on utilization or maintenance, or even adding specific custom fields to certain categories of items.
For example, the IT Group, containing items such as laptops and personal computers, could have a custom field for software licenses, warranties, specs, and more! To sum up:
You can also read more about EZOfficeInventory’s basic group functionality. We also have a more detailed post on using groups with modules like work orders, maintenance, and access control.
2. Bundles
Another great way to organize equipment is through bundles. Think of them as a functional category where you add all items that people generally checkout together.
An example could be a sound setup bundle for your event management firm, containing speakers, chargers, microphones, battery packs, and more. This type of organization is helpful when you need a ‘kit’ catered towards a specific use.
By categorizing it as such, and enabling it to be checked out together, you not only help future checkouts be smoother and quicker but also eliminate the need for pick lists every time someone goes out for a project. Simply checkout a bundle, and it would already contain everything you need!
Create bundles including items ranging from consumable inventory to tools, and even larger equipment. As an example:
Another great thing about bundles is the flexibility you’re afforded when creating them. For example, you can either add a specific camera to a photoshoot bundle or define the types of cameras you’d like in it.
In this way, even if that specific camera has been checked out separately or with a bundle, you can always have other bundles on hand with alternative cameras! This type of dynamism ensures that asset tracking software is bending to your will and workflows, not the other way around! Learn more about bundles in EZOfficeInventory.
3. Packages
Packages are a way to organize assets when they’re clamped together, for example, or when you anticipate taking actions on them together. Think of a car radio attached to a company car. If the car is checked into a specific location, the same would be true for the radio!
In this way, you’d always be taking the same kinds of actions on both those items owing to the fact that they’re bound together. Here’s a quick refresher:
It’s important to remember the ways in which bundles and packages differ, however. Bundles are usually grouped by function (like all the sales material meant to be taken to a corporate conference). On the other hand, packages are grouped together not based on the way they’ll be used but based on the fact that they can’t be easily separated.
The benefits of organizing assets using asset tracking software
Organizing assets can be a huge boon to businesses. It can streamline processes and help you cut back on the number of actions needed to checkout an item, for example, or put it into maintenance.
This kind of organizational efficiency will not just save time and resources, but will also help reinforce policies around asset management, such as which items can be checked out together, or what equipment can be accessed by specific staff members.
In this way, you lower overhead costs and speed up administrative tasks, and that’s a definite win!
Have feedback for our equipment tracking software?
EZOfficeInventory is the leading asset tracking software used by SMBs all over the globe.
For more assistance, drop us an email at support@ezo.io.
