Save More: Why Is Asset Tracking Important for Cost Control

Asset tracking, the process of managing and monitoring an organization’s property, is essential for tax and regulatory compliance. But avoiding the ire of the IRS shouldn’t be the only reason your company explores why asset tracking is important. Rather, asset tracking is the best tool in your organization’s arsenal for preserving your two most essential assets: money and time.

Every organization can benefit from establishing a new asset tracking system or updating their aging one—and the benefits far surpass simpler tax preparation. It’s not only that asset tracking helps your business avoid IRS audits or other setbacks. It’s also that keeping assets well-managed provides clear advantages over less organized competitors. Read on to learn more why asset tracking is important for your organization’s cost control and time management. 

4 Ways Asset Tracking Saves Money

From furniture to farm equipment, the entire reason organizations acquire assets in the first place is to use them to improve their bottom line. Ideally, the up-front cost of a new laptop, for example, will be well eclipsed by the increased output in productivity that follows. Asset tracking is important for following assets like that laptop throughout their useful lives and confirming that they are fulfilling their expected value to the organization, no guesswork required. Here are some of the most visible ways that prioritizing asset tracking can save money. 

1. Reduced maintenance costs

Assets like computers and vehicles require regular maintenance in order to perform at their peak productivity levels, but it can be tricky to keep track of all those different appointments—especially if your organization has a large number of similar assets. If assets go too long without regular maintenance, the repairs they require when they eventually break down will be more costly than preventative care. An asset tracking system can help you remember key maintenance dates: just plug them into the asset tracking software so you can scan a barcode affixed to the asset and instantly gain insights into its prior and upcoming maintenance schedule. 

2. Fewer unexpected expenses

Critical asset suddenly out of commission? You’re looking at a rush repair bill to get it back to work. It’s clear why asset tracking is important for eliminating surprises like this one. When you have a system in place to carefully track your assets, you can get a handle on whether your workplace is one asset breakdown away from an unproductive work week and buy a back-up in advance. You can also keep track of your assets’ relative ages and how likely they are to require more frequent repairs. And if you have overworked assets at one workplace, and more assets than you can use in another one, you can transport them to different locations in order to best take advantage of your full asset fleet. 

3. Cost savings at every lifecycle stage

The portion of an asset’s life in which it is in use is only one part of its journey within your organization. From planning to purchase an asset to disposing or selling a decommissioned one, each one follows a five-stage asset lifecycle—and there are opportunities for saving money at each one, if you’re paying attention. At the planning stage, you can research the exact number of assets your organization requires. At the acquisition stage, you can negotiate a fair price. During deployment, you can ensure the asset is used effectively. During the operation and maintenance stage, you can keep records of its depreciation over time. Finally, you can dispose of the asset safely (or even for a profit) while making smarter predictions for future asset purchases.

4. Reduced theft/loss

If you don’t know which assets you have, it’s hard to know which assets are even missing. By tagging your assets with barcodes, you can scan them to determine whether they’re in the place they’re supposed to be. Asset software with a streamlined check-in/check-out process can quickly reveal who last had ownership of an asset and thus hold employees more accountable for assets’ movements. Tracking assets can also save your organization the trouble of being haunted by ghost or zombie assets, which are falsely believed to be out of commission when they’re not, or vice versa. Keeping track of your assets is a lot cheaper than having to buy replacements when they go missing. 

4 Ways Asset Tracking Saves Time

An organization’s assets ought to make it run more efficiently, not less. However, the opposite occurs when there isn’t an asset tracking system in place. Many assets change hands frequently and if they aren’t properly tagged, they can get misplaced or lost, and then that’s time out of your day spent tracking them down. If you and your staff are constantly focused on an outdated or inefficient way of managing assets, that’s time you’re not spending on your organization’s central mission. Here are the reasons why asset tracking is important when your priority is saving time. 

1. Speedy audits

Fixed asset audits can seem like overwhelmingly time-consuming tasks—and they can be without an asset management system. Asset tracking software can turn your yearly inventory audit into a simpler, faster task by allowing you to designate specific portions of the audit to the specific members of your team who work with certain assets the most. And the faster you accomplish your audit, the faster you can correct any inaccuracies that the audit uncovers, making you even more efficient. 

2. Decreased human error

Without asset tracking, or with an outdated system like a handwritten ledger or an Excel spreadsheet, the repetitive process of recording asset data can easily give way to human error, inaccuracies that take time to correct and which can slow your organization down. Fortunately, the tedium of asset tracking is what also makes it ideal for automated processing. By leaving the gruntwork to asset tracking software, your team can focus on more productive work tasks. 

3. Ease of finding important documents

Where is the receipt for that asset your company bought five years ago? What about its maintenance records? Instead of leaving your team to spend hours tracking those important files down, keep them attached to the asset’s unique barcode number in an asset tracking software solution. Asset tracking software stores more than pure spreadsheet data; you can also upload and attach important documents, which means hunting them down in an email folder becomes a thing of the past. 

4. Faster accounting processes

Your organization needs to keep meticulous records of its assets in order to track their depreciation and ensure you are not paying more taxes than you need to be, but that can take time. Asset tracking software can automate depreciation formulas for corresponding assets based on their type. And the less time you spend working on filing your taxes, the more time you can spend meeting the bottom line. 

Choosing Software for Asset Tracking

Modern asset tracking means using a two-pronged approach: tagging physical assets to track them, then storing data about those tracked assets in software designed to work with those tags. When it comes to choosing the software you’ll use, there are plenty of options. And since they are all designed to serve the same purpose of tracking your assets, they can all start to look the same. 

However, it’s important to choose a solution that fits your unique needs, because the right software can help save your organization money and time. Asset Panda fits the bill because it’s an asset tracking software that can be customized to streamline with the workflow you already use. It saves you time because you and your staff don't have to learn a new process, and it saves you money, because you can integrate it with your existing software instead of buying pricey new alternatives. 

Asset Panda keeps all your asset data in one centralized hub, preventing employees from overwriting or duplicating one another’s work. Employees can access it through its cloud-based web client or its mobile app, so you and your staff can track assets on the go, using the smartphone cameras you already carry to scan barcodes. It’s no wonder that hundreds of organizations around the world, in fields as varied as construction and healthcare, have developed their own bespoke workflows perfect for their specific needs, all using Asset Panda as their base. 

See for yourself why Asset Panda is one of the highest-rated asset management software solutions available when you request your personalized demo today.