Slay Your Ghost and Zombie Assets with Fixed Assets Tracking System

Got ghost and zombie assets? If you don't know how many assets you own, a fixed asset tracking system is something you’d be wise to consider. It's not uncommon for a business owner not to know just how many fixed assets they own. Fixed assets have a useful life of more than one year, are purchased for long-term use and are not likely to be converted quickly into cash. Good examples include office equipment and tools, IT equipment, land, office space, company vehicles and furniture.

Now, you may be wondering how a business owner wouldn’t be able to state with certainty how many fixed assets they own. However, a fixed asset may change hands often over the course of its useful life. Without an accurate and real-time means of tracking your assets, it’s difficult to pinpoint the location of any item. Fixed assets often fall through the cracks and are forgotten, stolen or otherwise lost.

Ghost Assets

In fact, Gartner, Inc., has estimated that up to 30 percent of organizations don’t know what items they own or who is using them. Approximately 70 percent of organizations have at least a 30 percent discrepancy between their reported fixed asset volume and what is actually available to them. Ghost assets can be a serious drain on your bottom line. You could be paying taxes for items you don’t even have in your inventory anymore. Long term, that kind of financial mismanagement can put the health and longevity of your organization at risk. If you’ve been overestimating your fixed assets inventory by 30 percent, imagine what you could do with the extra money you’ve been paying to the IRS for assets you don’t own. Ghost assets can also put your company at risk for non-compliance, particularly if you’re a state or federal government entity.

Zombie Assets

Ghosts aren’t the only thing haunting your business; zombies can hurt you, too. Like ghost assets, “zombie assets” result from poor asset management practices. In contrast to ghost assets, which are assets that appear in your records but aren’t in service anymore, zombie assets are in your physical inventory but are missing from your fixed assets register.

Scott Halliday, co-founder of Acumen Information Systems, estimates based on industry averages that between 15 percent and 30 percent of the average company’s inventory is comprised of ghost assets, and 12 percent of inventory is comprised of zombie assets. So that means that almost 40 percent or more of the typical organization’s assets may be classified either as ghost or zombie assets.

Your Ghost (and Zombie) Buster

A fixed asset tracking system eliminates this needless waste and enables you to outsource your asset tracking function. First, you’ll never need to resort to guesswork about how many assets you have. Second, our employees have to spin your wheels trying to hunt down missing assets. Third, you’ll also save time and money, including reduced tax liabilities and the elimination of fees for non-compliance. When you always know where your assets are and who has them, you increase accountability throughout your organization. A fixed assets tracking system centralizes all of your fixed asset data under one roof. Whether you need to access an insurance policy, warranty expiration, depreciation, maintenance history, check-in/check-out status or something else, it’s all at your fingertips.

Asset Panda’s mobile fixed asset tracking system offers the most streamlined, yet powerful solution for business owners in every industry.