Asset management is a broad concept that basically defines how your business accounts for various types of assets, such as computers, tools, or company vehicles. It's important to keep track of how many assets your business owns, who uses them, when they need service, and when they need to be replaced.
With a company of any size, asset management can be a chore, particularly if it's all done on paper or even on spreadsheets. With paper, you have all the standard problems of illegible handwriting, lost or damaged papers, misspellings, and having to file it all. With spreadsheets, updating can be a chore, and it's not uncommon for spreadsheets to be created, filled in once, and forgotten about. But you can use workflow software to take care of asset management in a way that doesn't involve reams of paper or spreadsheets that nobody bothers to look at or update. Here are some ways workflow software can help you radically improve your asset management process. Managing Computer Hardware Trying to manage computer hardware with a spreadsheet can be not only time-intensive but inaccurate and hard to keep up to date. If more than one person is allowed to assign computer equipment, they all have to update the system, or else big problems can result. For example, IT may think it has a laptop that can be assigned to a new hire when in fact the last one was assigned already and nobody bothered to update the spreadsheet. With a workflow process for managing computer assets, however, inventory counts can be automatically updated each time a piece of equipment is assigned. At any time, personnel can know how many assets the company has, who they're assigned to, and when they need to be upgraded or retired. Managing Computer Software and Licenses Hardware isn't the only thing that has to be managed. Managing software licenses is equally important. Should your company be audited by a software company and found to have more installations of the software than licenses, you could face hefty fines. But with workflow software, you can manage software licenses from beginning to end. Whenever someone is assigned a software license, the license count is updated so that the number of software installations always matches the number of software licenses. Then if your company is audited by a software company, it has the records to prove it's in compliance. Managing Employee Tools
