Cheap Inventory and Asset Tracking Methods Aren’t Your Friends

Sometimes you get what you pay for in using cost-friendly asset tracking solutions. Particularly this is especially true when it comes to tracking assets or inventory. Sadly, many people learn that the cheapest asset tracking software isn’t the best way to keep track of equipment and inventory. There are many inexpensive ways to keep up with the products used or sold that make a company tick. But just because they aren’t racking up a huge bill doesn’t mean they are the best for your business. Cheap inventory and asset tracking methods can actually hurt a company more than help.

The Disadvantages of Cheap Inventory and Asset Tracking Software

Nowadays, there are many methods to tracking inventory that are cost-effective on the bottom line, but in the end, they are more likely to cost a company money.

In fact, cheap inventory tracking software can cause companies many problems. Companies that use cheap asset tracking solutions can:

• Lose track of their equipment through loss of theft
• Fail to maintain equipment due to a lack of maintenance history
• Cause companies to replace their inventory tracking software with a more efficient inventory tracking system

With cost-friendly asset tracking methods, many organizations don't know what kind of assets they own, how much inventory they have in stock/going out the door, or how much money or time they are losing annually because of these downfalls. Undeniably, businesses really can be at risk.

Handwritten Ledgers

Have you ever been to the doctor's office and tried to decipher his handwriting when he gives you a prescription or notes on your chart? It can be like trying to read a foreign language! There are so many possibilities for error it’s scary. Just imagine if you had to read handwriting from multiple sources on a ledger that tracks a company’s assets or inventory. One person’s “1” looks like a “7,” or another’s “S” looks like a “5.”

What if an end-user wasn’t wearing their glasses and jotted down the SKU number for an item incorrectly into the ledger, and then it went missing? And you were using the SKU someone wrote down, but it wasn’t readable to begin with? 

Now you have no way of getting the correct SKU because you can't find the item. The list goes on and on! And in today’s era of email and electronic communication, who wants to spend the time writing down long series of numbers and hand-written details about an item every time it’s in use, who it’s used by, or goes in for repair? 

Yet shockingly, some still use this outdated method of keeping up with assets and inventory instead of a quicker, more accurate, and flexible asset or inventory tracking system.

Shared Electronic Spreadsheets

So thankfully, some companies gave up the handwritten ledgers – too many cups of coffee spilled and smeared the ink, making them illegible! – and decided to catch up with technology and started using electronic spreadsheets (i.e., Excel documents). These were great for a while.

But it's a much easier and quicker way to enter information into an electronic form that you could share with others in the company so they could also have access to the status/location/history of an asset or the current stock of inventory.

Unfortunately, many of the same errors from handwritten ledgers made their way to spreadsheets. “Brad” was in such a rush to enter the long inventory list that he was speeding through his list and not paying attention and mistyped all sorts of letters and numbers.

So when “John” pulled up the shared Excel sheet that all team members can access to find out where the equipment he needs is with the SKU number associated with it, he couldn’t find the asset because the number was incorrect, and "Brad" never entered the correct version. Was it lost or stolen, or broken? He might never know. So he has to go out and buy a brand new piece of equipment, hitting the company with a $10,000 bill!

And let’s not leave out the potential issue of “accidentally” erasing lines or columns of data and hitting “save” before you realize it: hundreds or even thousands of data cells gone with one push of a button.

The Solution to Cheap Asset Tracking Methods

Thankfully there is a solution to bypassing the cheap inventory and asset tracking methods. Today’s asset tracking technology is easy-to-use, and companies can migrate their Excel spreadsheets to these new platforms and won’t lose data. Many programs are cloud-based systems that sync with mobile apps and come with a mobile barcode scanner that anyone can use with an employee’s smartphone or tablet. Employees now have round-the-clock access to the entire lifecycle of each of their company’s assets or inventory – from where it is, the check-in/check-out status, maintenance reports, and even financial data.

Companies benefit from cost savings afforded to them in that they keep better tabs on all their assets and inventory. Employees are better able to use their time instead of looking for misplaced assets or tracking down inventory numbers. Businesses have reduced the number of duplicate purchases by confirming what has already been purchased through real-time data that you can fully customize for a company’s individual reporting needs.

Asset Panda's Inventory Tracking Software

Asset Panda offers the most powerful and user-friendly asset tracking system on the market. With Asset Panda, organizations have complete control over managing their assets and inventory – entirely from the mobile devices their employees already carry.

This integrated system combines free mobile apps for Android and iOS devices that sync with the cloud and a built-in mobile barcode scanner, eliminating the need to purchase other costly hardware and software. Clients can add as many users as they wish and customize fields to reflect their specific needs. 

From the palm of your hand or on the web, Asset Panda gives you real-time information on the check-in/check-out status of equipment, what condition those items are in, their repair histories, and maintenance schedules. Asset Panda’s built-in barcode scanner enables users to locate specific items that have been logged into the Asset Panda tool in a matter of seconds.

Asset Panda is flexible and incredibly easy to use while at the same time extremely affordable because we don’t have hardware or software licenses to pay for upgrades, and our customers don’t have to purchase separate barcode scanners.

Try Asset Panda today with a free 14-day trial, and you’ll say goodbye to those scary cheap tracking methods forever!