Evaluating the Role of Asset Tracking Systems

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What are Asset Tracking Systems?

Asset tracking refers to the process of verifying the location, condition, and value of a company or organization’s fixed assets – or simply stated, making sure your asset records match reality.

Poor management of these items can be costly on many levels, so looking at the different asset tracking systems available on the market and how they fit with your individual business or industry is vital to have the best fitting system in place.

It’s easy to lose track of the resources a business relies on if they are using outdated forms of asset management like shared online spreadsheets. There are so many opportunities for error, and with a more mobile workforce and employees spread out among large facilities or across the country who need access to tools or equipment at varying times of the day, one error can potentially make or break a business.

The asset tracking systems available to companies both large and small are numerous and they each have specific features that make gathering and reporting asset information more manageable. Asset tracking systems can display, transmit, and capture encoded information about your assets; it also can send that information to an application that stores and interprets the data.

Then, you can generate customized reports that calculate and organize data such as current asset value, depreciation, location and movement, use history and lost or damage to assets.

Today’s modern asset tracking systems provide a comprehensive solution for companies that need assistance taking physical inventory, maintaining accountability, and controlling physical assets both on and off-site. Companies and all users have data on the “who, what, when, where, and how much” on each of their assets. Managers can set parameters that limit access so that employees only see information that is relevant and necessary for them to do their jobs.

Here are a few industries that are seeing the value of asset tracking systems in daily operations:

Retail business

Retail companies have a unique set of issues when tracking their assets.  The nature of the retail industry means you have multiple locations and in some cases, a potentially less experienced workforce. Complex asset tracking systems aren’t a good fit. Asset tracking systems that allow for unlimited users leveraging free mobile apps and a cloud-based platform works well for retail.  The employees in the store simply download the free app on their mobile device and enter their secure log in. They are given secure access for their location and if required only certain types of assets in that location.  Employees and managers can perform fast secure audits to let the home office know what they have and what condition it is in. All the data about an asset is stored in one safe and secure location.

Religious institutions

An estimated $1,700 per year is spent on each regular attendee at churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. Every cent is crucial and plays an important role in budgeting for a variety of programs like child/adult programs, holiday productions, music and special musical performances in addition to the regular expenses of items like office supplies, facility expenses (utilities, maintenance, rent), personnel. So the right asset tracking system will benefit churches and other religious institutions by helping limited staff organize all the assets needed on a daily basis. No one will be wondering where an item is or who has it. It also saves time for staff looking to find an item that is seemingly lost or stolen and unnecessary spending on duplicate items that could go toward new items for the congregation to enjoy and use.

Hotels

Hotel management companies have teams of people who need quick and easy access to information about assets across many different locations. For hotels, it’s essential to understand the impact of upgrades and repairs on depreciation and value as items are used every single day. Good asset tracking systems help hotels configure depreciation or inflation settings to easily manage and track depreciation on all or select assets. Hotel chains can set specific parameters to calculate depreciation based on the straight-line depreciation method and asset inflation on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Even though there are many asset tracking systems on the market today, there are quite a few differences among them, especially when looking at features such as, flexibility and customization, price point, customer service, simplicity and ease of use. Asset Panda offers the most powerful, flexible, simple and cost-effective mobile asset tracking platform in the world.

Using free iOS and Android apps hosted in the cloud, Asset Panda gives businesses and organizations one centralized location in which they can access the entire lifecycle of each of their vital hardware assets – and all from the mobile devices they already carry. That resulting efficiency closes the loop among stakeholders, eliminates costly errors and increases accountability. Easy access to data also saves your employees time and frustration.

Asset Panda’s intuitive interface makes it easy to work from anywhere, on devices you’re already using. That means everyone in your organization can access the right information about your assets—in the right way and at the right time. Best of all, Asset Panda is so easy to use that it requires no special training. See it for yourself and try Asset Panda’s asset tracking system free for 14 days.

By:

Audra London

Audra London, founder of Conceptual Communications, LLC, has over 10 years of writing, public relations and marketing experience and serves as an expert on press releases, media relations, feature writing, web content and marketing copy.

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