The decision to track your organization’s fixed assets is a sound one. Choosing a fixed asset tracking software to oversee these items can boost profitability and increase the usefulness of the data the system collects.
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What Is Fixed Asset Tracking?
Fixed asset tracking provides valuable data about items that stay in place.
Also known as PP&E (property, plant, and equipment), properly-cared-for fixed assets can provide tax benefits as they age.
To decision makers, they also offer peace of mind and increased efficiency for as long as the workforce can depend on them.
Here are a few examples of fixed assets, all of which can benefit from fixed asset tracking software:
- large equipment items, such as machine tools
- appliances
- heating, air conditioning, and ventilation systems
- mutual funds
- buildings
- intellectual property
- real estate investments
As you can see, these are all items that aren’t quickly consumed or sold as inventory. They tend to stay with a business for quite some time, as they often involve an extensive investment.
If an item isn’t going anywhere, as opposed to a consumable or movable asset, then why track it?
Fixed asset tracking helps decision makers monitor how well an item is operating, screen the environment surrounding it, and more.
This data is vital in ensuring that the asset remains in good repair. It also helps stakeholders make decisions about the item’s usefulness based on a particular point in its life cycle.
The Benefits of Fixed Asset Tracking Software
Now that you know what fixed asset tracking is, let’s discuss just a few of its benefits.
Most organizations find that they discover benefits to an investment in fixed asset tracking software that they did not consider when first installing the system. These include:
- Increased productivity: Fixed asset tracking software provides a consistent, quick way to gather data. All it takes is a second-long scan of an RFID tag, barcode, or unique QR code.
- Saved time: With your entire organization united by the same intuitive system, miscommunication between departments or branches, as well as inconsistencies across departments, disappear. The saved time and efficiency are invaluable.
- Saved resources: Duplicated information, which often involves expensive and wasteful hard copy forms, is no longer necessary. By instantaneously saving information in the cloud, fixed asset tracking saves space, drastically cuts storage costs, and is environmentally friendly.
- Instant organization: Images, operator manuals, warranty information, and maintenance actions records are easily accessible.
- Security: Only employees with access to the data can look at, analyze, or alter the information from fixed asset tracking software. Flexible levels of admittance mean that the COO uses the same system to view data as a consumer. The company is in full control of credential issuance.
With the right software, it is easy to store, search and analyze the records and data that fixed asset tracking generates. The software system also saves time and money, which you can also track.
It’s important, however, to choose the best system for your organization.
What to Consider Before Choosing Fixed Asset Tracking Software
Before deciding on a form of asset tracking software, decision makers should analyze the company’s mission, industry, and future aims. Here is what to consider when comparing and contrasting different systems.
Think About What Your Company Truly Needs
Don’t be distracted by flashy add-ons like fancy graphics if you run a small single-location business and need to keep your software suite simple.
On the other hand, if you run a multinational organization with millions of assets to care for, ensure that your tracking software is powerful and flexible enough for all your needs and employees.
Consider the Next Few Years
Look beyond the current financial quarter to the potential growth, contraction, or changes your company might face.
How well will the software still serve you at that time? Is it scalable?
The right fixed asset tracking software will meet your requirements now and in the future, no matter how technology changes.
Budget Requirements
As with any other aspect of your business, you need to keep your budget in mind when choosing a fixed asset tracking system.
Is the system a good fit for a prorated budget? Long-term maintenance, data storage, and potential transition costs might play a role, so keep these in mind when exploring pricing.
Your Fixed Asset Inventory
Launching a fixed asset software system will involve initial labeling and scanning, so begin the process by conducting a thorough audit of the items you’d like to track.
What is their approximate worth? How much of them is there? How much cloud storage will your company require?
Depending on the direction of your industry, and your place within it, your fixed asset tracking software will differ from the business next door.
Therefore, assess your needs so that you can meet them properly.
The Qualities of Good Fixed Asset Tracking Software
While each business has different needs and requirements of its fixed asset tracking software, some constants are always present in a strong system.
It’s important to know what these are before beginning your search.
After deciding on what your organization requires of your fixed asset tracking software, look closely to ensure that your choice has these qualities.
1) Allows Customization
Good fixed asset tracking software meets your organization’s needs. It does not force extreme and uncomfortable changes on your workflow or employees.
Consider several different types of fixed asset tracking.
Give your company the chance to be itself. Each option offers pros and cons, and perhaps even a combination of these might be the best fit for your business.
- Barcodes: The most familiar form of labeling and tracking, barcodes involve using a series of black lines on a white background to convey information. Employees scan this data with a handheld device. Barcodes are economical and best for the transfer of small amounts of information.
- RFID Tagging: This method of tracking, Radio Frequency Identification, relies on radio waves and a reading device. RFID is an especially secure and robust form of fixed asset tracking software.
- GPS: Where fixed assets are concerned, GPS-enabled tracking acts as a deterrent against theft and guides clients, employees, or contractors to specific pieces of equipment.
- BLE: It stands for Bluetooth Low Energy. Typically used to pair smartphones, fitness trackers, and headphones, Bluetooth is also extremely useful in allowing a fixed asset to communicate with another device, either a small mobile form of technology or another fixed asset.
- NFC Tagging: Near-field communications is similar to RFID tracking, but it involves a closer range and can be accomplished on a smartphone or tablet.
- QR Codes: These squares of patterned black and white spaces are rapidly becoming ubiquitous in the life of every consumer. It is easy to access QR codes on a basic smartphone and assign a unique identifier to each one. Additionally, they hold a great deal of data.
Only you can decide on the best form of customized fixed asset tracking. Understanding its different forms will help you make an informed choice.
2) It Is Cloud-Based
The ability to store fixed asset tracking information in the cloud carries many advantages. These include:
- Secure data accessible only by those who need to view it
- Data is available at all times to specific employees, regardless of location or time zones
- The required information is available to third-party maintenance technicians
- Money and space are saved
- Data is protected against fire, theft, water damage, and natural disasters
- Organization is automated
- Data is safely stored off-site
- Confusion between multiple users of the same register, such as an outdated Excel spreadsheet, is eliminated
- Data is preserved against malware attacks or viruses
- Updates are instantaneous and shared with all users
Cloud-based fixed asset tracking software optimizes the time of all employees. It ensures that they have the information and equipment they need to concentrate on their tasks.
The use of this type of storage quickly standardizes corporate communication and retrieval procedures.
3) Facilitates Life Cycle Management
The life cycle of an asset is best predicted through sound data and performance reports. Fixed asset tracking software provides this in a number of ways.
After the company procures and installs a fixed asset, the depreciation management of its useful life begins.
The right tracking software will quickly create an accurate picture of its health and dependability day after day while also accurately providing and projecting the adjusted value of your asset.
When it is time to salvage, sell, recycle, repurpose, or dispose of your asset, the data provided by faithful tracking will enable you to make a sound decision.
Moerover, it will be based on mathematical analysis of profits, rather than a gut feeling.
4) Helps Monitor Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory compliance is different for each area and industry. Depending on national, local, and union requirements, regulatory compliance can vary even within offices of the same company.
The answer to achieving regulatory compliance is fixed asset tracking software.
Avoiding fines, achieving accuracy, and ensuring employee safety is easier when preventive maintenance is automatically scheduled and easy to prove with just a few clicks.
A study by the Aberdeen Group shows 93% of all manufacturers which still used an outdated paper or spreadsheet format to keep records were unable to reach the status of best in class.
Companies answer to many different levels of authority, and they all might demand compliance to regulations in distinct forms and at various times.
The ability to accurately and quickly call forth information regarding compliance actions will allow team leaders to refocus quickly. Digital trail asset tracking is highly useful in this respect.
5) Provides Reporting Options
The best kinds of fixed asset tracking software provide many options for report generation.
The highly visual society in which we live demands several forms of data sharing, including charts, documents, virtual meetings, and interactive demos.
Your software should meet these modern workplace challenges.
GoCodes allows users to create an easily digestible tabular report in just a few minutes.
Employees can organize data by only applicable categories, making it easy to sort.
Filtering is automated.
Moreover, it is possible to share and save the resulting report in many forms, including PDF.
Employees can efficiently drop any relevant information into presentation slide shows, white papers, or analysis documents.
6) It Is Mobile-Friendly
Asset tracking via mobile devices is no longer considered a technologically advanced perk. It is an expected part of integration, with expectations of instant communication.
Seeking out mobile-friendly software carries the following benefits:
- Employees and other users do not require long, in-depth specialized training, as they are likely familiar with smartphone or tablet scanning.
- The purchase of new equipment is not necessary.
- Companies with a “use your own tech” policy are instantly integrated.
- WiFi is not necessary; a data plan can be used in remote locations or away from the office base.
- Those working remotely can easily scan items as necessary.
As WiFi becomes more ubiquitous, data plans increase, and smartphones move rapidly towards 5G technology, a correctly designed fixed asset tracking software system will help companies keep pace.
Conclusion
Fixed asset tracking software is one of the easiest ways to harness modern technology even for long-standing manufacturing and office practices.
The many benefits of fixed asset tracking software are extremely useful in working with an item’s life cycle.
This technology’s flexibility and quick adaptability mean that companies both large and small can find a good, scalable fit for their needs.
Considering the organization’s present and future needs will result in decisions welcomed by stakeholders and workforce members alike.
GoCodes Can Help
We use QR code tags with a unique visual code that you can scan with your smartphone. When scanned, GoCodes tags provide GPS information about equipment location, making asset tracking easy. Sign up for a free trial here.
