6 Ways Asset Management Can Help Growing Companies Save Time and Money
Fixed assets are important investments of an organization. Eventually, as the business grows, the number of fixed assets grows as well, and this growth comes with a lot of tracking challenges, which increase costs to an organization by up to 10% per user. That being said, there is a way to make asset tracking easier even as your business grows. And that is through smart asset and inventory management.
Here are the different ways smart enterprise asset management can help your business track, and manage your assets while saving time and money.
Automation
Manual entry requires a lot of time and workforce. Having an automated inventory system significantly boosts efficiency, because your staff will only take a fraction of the time to perform a manual inventory.
With a quick scan of a barcode, or RFID, you’re ready. Your staff gets more done in half the time, with half the workforce, making conducting a physical inventory much easier, and a lot quicker. Say goodbye to treasure-hunt-like searches in the storage closet, or warehouse. All it takes is a few clicks from an office desk, and your staff can immediately trace the exact location of an item.
Up To Date Asset Information
As mentioned earlier, managing inventory manually demands a large staff, and a sizeable chunk of their time, which they could use for more important tasks. Cutting down the staff size, and the time to do a physical inventory will save your business serious money. And it doesn’t stop there.
You’ll incur more savings by avoiding unnecessary purchases or misplaced assets. That is possible because of the real-time up-to-date asset information available at your disposal, anytime, and anywhere.
For example, suppose a monitor in your office stops working and will need immediate replacement. Your asset custodian just needs to look it up in the system, and right away, he or she will see that there’s a spare monitor in storage and that there’s no need to purchase a new one. Without an IT asset management system, it’ll be a lot more difficult to know where to retrieve a spare monitor, let alone if it’s still in working condition.
Increased Accuracy
If your staff is still managing inventory by hand, it will not only cost you time and money. It will also affect the accuracy of your inventory data. In a manual inventory, frequent clerical errors like typos, or computation errors are inevitable. Just one misplaced “0” can throw a big wrench in your company’s financial reporting.
Smart inventory management ensures that you have organized and accurate asset information available all the time. At the end of each year, you’ll be getting highly reliable financial reports that can help you make informed decisions regarding budgets for the following year.
Improved Accountability
An effective asset management system like Teqtivity can also help you detect theft or misuse of assets by tracing every movement of every asset, leaving an audit trail documenting its location, condition, and its ownership.
An IT asset tracking solution automates and eases requesting to transfer an asset from one location to another, without having to compromise security. A property custodian/asset manager must first approve any changes to an asset, like location and ownership. A user will have to check out the asset before it could be released to him/her and check-in upon return of the asset.
Implementing IT asset management solutions gives you peace of mind that nobody in your company is misusing company assets, therefore reducing losses significantly.
Better Preventative Maintenance Program
IT assets need to be maintained from time to time, thus requiring regular asset inspections, and cleaning to prolong their lifespan, especially if they’re critical equipment.
Hardware asset management also keeps track of data that applies to preventative maintenance, such as installation date, warranty info. With this data, your staff can build a strong preventive maintenance plan with a set schedule and a comprehensive list of tasks.
Centralized Asset Information
All the asset information (serial numbers, ID tags, pictures, and even manuals) in an asset management system is stored in a single, and easily accessible place, which makes retrieving information much easier, and quicker than having to comb through spreadsheets or sift through pages, and pages of paperwork.
Key users in your company, and you especially, will have access to this info. The work process becomes easier and is completed a lot faster.
Final Thoughts
IT assets are one of your company’s biggest investments, so it’s only right that growing businesses, especially tech and shipping/fulfillment companies, invest in a process that ensures that they manage those assets the right way.
Give your business the growth it deserves through the right asset management. Let’s talk today.