Verify Possession of Items with Custody Verification in EZOfficeInventory

With our custody audit feature, you can request custodians to verify possession of Assets or Asset Stock items. This helps serve as proof that they are in possession of the asset(s). If they don’t have the items, they can also deny the verification request and list down reasons as to why not.

Let’s dive deeper into the entire custody audit process and see how you can benefit from it.

1. Enable custody audit

Enable this feature from Settings → Add Ons → Audit Items
→ Custody Audit. and click on ‘Enabled’, Enable Administrators to initiate Custody Audit and Enforce Custody Audit . Don’t forget to click ‘Update’ to save your chosen settings.

2. Custody audit for Assets

2.1. Send custody verification requests for Assets

To send out a custody verification request for an Asset, first, go to Items → Assets and select the relevant Asset. From the Assets Details page, you just have to click on the ‘Request Verification’ button on the right. This will send a verification request to the relevant user.

When you click on the button, an overlay appears where you can add any notes along with the verification request if you want. Once you’re done, click the ‘Request Verification’ button!

Once you’ve sent the custody verification request, the following users can respond to it:

The administrator
The supervisor of the user the request is sent to, provided that the Asset is part of the supervisor’s user listing
The person to whom the request is sent

2.2. Send mass custody verification requests

You can also send out mass custody verification requests. Go to Items → Assets and select multiple Assets from the listing page. Then from the Actions dropdown menu, click on ‘Request Verification’. The following overlay appears, where you can add a note that applies to all the selected Assets:

Note: The same functionality also extends to Asset Stock. However, there is no option to add any notes to the verification requests for Asset Stock.

2.3. Acknowledge custody of Assets

Once you receive the custody verification request, you can respond by acknowledging possession. To do so, click on the bell icon at the top right corner of your account and choose ‘Verification Requests’ from the menu that opens up.

This will take you to a list of all verification requests, whether they have been responded to or not.

To respond to a request, click on ‘Respond’ for that particular Asset. This opens up the following overlay:

From the overlay, you can choose from either of the following two responses:

Verified: Choose this option if you are in possession of the particular Asset.
Denied: Choose this option if you do not have possession of the particular Asset.

You can further also specify the condition of the Asset you are in the custody of by using the dropdown menu. In case your chosen response is ‘Verified’, the conditions you can choose from are:

Good
Damaged
Broken
Other

In case you choose ‘Denied’, then you can choose why you have denied the request. The conditions you can choose from are:

Lost
Stolen
Other

Now Click the ‘Respond’ button and you’re done!

Note: Filling out the ‘Response’ field is mandatory. You cannot acknowledge possession by leaving the ‘Response’ field empty.

You can also respond to the custody verification request from the particular Asset Details page. Click on the ‘Acknowledge Custody’ button on the right and follow the aforementioned steps.

A user can also self-verify even if a custody verification request is not sent to them. To do so, open an Asset that is in your possession, click on the More dropdown menu and select ‘Verify Possession’.

Note: This ability to self-verify is only available for Assets and is not applicable in the case of Asset Stock and Packages.

2.4. Custody verification for Assets in Packages

If an Asset is part of a package, then you cannot send a custody verification request for that single Asset. When you go to More → Packages Listing page → Open a particular Package → More → Request Verification, the overlay that appears clarifies that the verification request will be sent for each asset in the package.

So the relevant user will have to respond to verification requests for all Assets in that package. You can also save a response as a draft if you are not ready to submit it yet. However, this is only applicable for Packages and not for Assets. In the Draft state, the user can go back to edit the conditions and responses later on.

3. Custody verification for Asset Stock

3.1. Send custody verification requests for Asset Stock

To send custody verification requests for Asset Stock, go to Items → Asset Stock and select the relevant Asset Stock from the checkbox on the left. Then go to the Actions dropdown menu and select ‘Request Verification’. You can also open the particular Asset Stock item and request verification from the More dropdown menu.

Once you do so, the following overlay opens and all you have to do is click on ‘Request Verification’:

3.2. Acknowledge custody of Asset Stock

This will take you to a list of all verification requests. Once there, click on the Asset Stock tab.

Previously, a custody verification request was sent for the line item ‘MacBook chargers’. To respond to that request, click on ‘Respond’ for that particular line item.

This opens up the following overlay:

Similar to the response for Asset, you will have to specify a value for the ‘Response’ field and the ‘Condition’ field. However, you will also have to specify a quantity that you are verifying or denying possession of.

In the above visual, the total quantity of Asset Stock is 5 and the user is verifying custody of only 2. However, they cannot submit the response as is, because that leads to the following error:

Therefore, to submit a response for Asset Stock, you must choose some response for the entire quantity, i.e. 2 in this case. So if you have custody of 1 item but not for the other 1 remaining, you must choose ‘Verified’ for the 1 you have and choose ‘Denied’ for the other. To add another response, simply click on the ‘Add Another Response’ button.

Such a response, in which you have chosen ‘Verified’ for some items and ‘Denied’ for the others, is shown as ‘Partially verified’:

Note: Filling out the ‘Response’ field is mandatory. You cannot acknowledge possession and leave the ‘Response’ field blank.

You can also respond to the custody verification request from the particular Asset Stocks Details page. Just go to the More dropdown menu, click on ‘Acknowledge Custody’ and follow the aforementioned steps.

4. Capture signatures to verify custody

Go to Settings → Add Ons → Capture Signatures. Here you can choose to enable or enforce signatures while verifying custody.

For instance when responding to a custody request for Asset Stock, the following overlay appears asking you to fill in quantity along with the signature.

5. KPIs for custody verification

You can keep track of important KPIs related to custody verification, right from the Dashboard. To display the relevant KPIs, simply click on the ‘Edit’ button in your Dashboard. Then click on the ‘Add/Edit Widgets’ button, which opens up a dialog box where you can scroll down to see the entire list of KPIs and other setting options available to choose from.

Here are the relevant KPIs you can choose from:

Verification requests for Asset Stock
Verification requests for Assets
Asset verification requests data
Asset Stock verification requests data

Once you’ve made your selections, click the ‘Done’ button. This ensures that your chosen settings are saved and implemented.

Here’s a visual of the metric cards for custody verification:

6. Apply filters to custody verification requests

You can also filter the verification requests to make it easier to find the ones you’re looking for. To do so, simply click on Filter as shown below and select the one you want.

Let’s say you want to only see requests that you yet have to respond to, so you select the State filter from above. This opens up the following overlay, where you can specify which state:

7. Mass respond to custody verification requests

To simplify your work, you can also mass respond to custody verification requests. To do so, simply select the verification requests you have yet to respond to, then go to the Actions dropdown and choose the relevant response, as shown below:

Similarly, you can also mass respond to verification requests for Asset Stock items.

8. View custody verification history

You can view the custody verification history of any Asset or Asset Stock by going to the respective details page. From there, click on the More dropdown and select ‘Custody Verification History’.

The following overlay appears, which details the entire verification history:

9. Reports for custody verification

Two new reports related to custody verification have been introduced. To generate either of them, go to More → Reports and you can see both the reports:

Asset Custody Verification
Asset Stock Custody Verification

Let’s look at the Asset Custody Verification report:

You can also apply filters to generate a more narrowed down report.

A new module for Custody Verification Requests has also been added when you create a Custom Report. This way, you can generate a report on all the verification requests for Assets and Asset Stock, and further narrow it down as needed.

10. Custody verification for non-login users

Go to Company Settings →Custody Verification → Allow custody verification via public link for non-login users.

Note: If item label scanning has been made mandatory, it will not be applicable to public link verification.

When this setting is enabled, admins can send non-login users requests for custody verification via email through a public link. Make sure that the user is subscribed to email alerts.

Note: Custody Verification alerts should be enabled from the Alerts module to send out requests.

For any Asset checked out to a particular non-login user, admins can send custody verification requests. Simply go to the Asset details page → More → Request verification.

An overlay will appear asking you to confirm the verification request. Once the request has been sent, both the non-login user and admin will receive an email alert. For the non-login user the email alert looks like this:

Once the non-login user receives the email, they can open the verification form from the link in the email. For Assets the form asks for the following with any additional mandatory custom fields if enabled:

After the user has verified/denied the request, they can click on ‘Respond’. They will be redirected to the success message below:

Admins can then check the Asset details page, where the verification status will be updated:

Similarly for checked out Asset Stocks, go to the details page →More → Request Verification.

An overlay will appear asking you to select the user you want to send the verification request to. Here you can select the relevant non-login user:

The non-login user will receive the email alert asking for Asset Stock custody verification. Clicking the link in the email will redirect the user to the following form:

The user has to enter the custody status and quantity for verification. Admins can view the verification responses from Asset Stock details page → More → History → Custody Verification History.

Lastly, admins can send verification requests for Packages as well. Go to the Package details page → More → Request Verification.

The non-login user will be sent out an email alert with the following verification form. Here the user will have to verify custody for all Items in a Package:

Admins can check the verification status from individual Item detail pages in the Package:

Read more on how to run Custody Audits for different Audit Locations.

11. Custody verification through the mobile app

You can also send custody verification requests and respond to them using our mobile app. To do so, choose an Asset and click on it to go the Asset Details Page. Once you click on the three dots on the bottom right of your Asset, you will be redirected to a list of possible actions you can take.

This opens up the following screen where you can add a note if needed before requesting verification:

From the Asset listing page on the mobile app, you can easily view the status of each Asset, as shown below:

The user can then open the Asset, click the ‘three dots’, and select the ‘Acknowledge Custody’ option to respond to the verification request.

Similarly, you can also carry out the same functionality for Assets in Packages.

You can also filter the results on the Asset Listings page. Click on the funnel and choose the ‘Verification Pending’ filter. Here is the end result:

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