Chime School

Posts Tagged ‘asset tracking’

We’ve all used them, spreadsheets, whether it’s to do a simple list of items, or whether you are looking to create advanced sums for business forecasts. Even though they are not really advanced enough for some of our requirements, we still use them. No doubt this is because they come free with our operating systems and the majority of people prefer to put up with a free one instead of buying a new one.

Even though spreadsheets come with a number of problems, they do have some useful features. The main ones are that they can handle simple calculations, they can create graphics, create business forecasts to see how much money you will lose. These all come in handy for certain jobs. However, due to the large number of problems spreadsheets have, they simply are not appropriate for tasks like tracking your UK fixed assets.

Even though spreadsheets intially sound useful for managing asset data, they can’t compete against an asset tracking software UK package.

Up until a certain point, a spreadsheet would prove to be useful for asset management, however, as obtain more and more assets and you wish to store more data about the assets, the spreadsheet becomes redundant.

Here is a list of a few features that every asset management software package should contain.

• It must be able to store enough information for your use. Despite being able to store massive amounts of data, a spreadsheet can’t store enough for asset management. The data that’s stored may not provide enough detail.
• They must be able to match the structure of the company. If the particular asset can be located in a number of sectors within a company, a basic spreadsheet cannot reflect this complex formation.
• It should be flexible enough to be restructed quickly a easily. Once a spreadsheet becomes very complex, it’s difficult to try and modify the data and especially the structure.
• They should be able to calculate different depreciation rates on individual items. If items were bought at different points in time, for example a computer and a monitor. The software should be capable enough to store individual price depreciation levels.
• It should be able to cope with re-lifeing of assets. If an asset is assessed and found to be useful, the depreciation level must be altered as the asset is now useful.
• They must be able to export the data into structured reports. It’s not easy to create a structured data report using a spreadsheet.

Those are just a few features that should be contained within any software package designed for asset management. Also it’s the reason why a spreadsheet is not good for adding asset data to a fixed asset register.

If you are an American company, then you might be required to know about the Sarbanes Oxley act. If you are a American company and have never have heard of the act, then you have already learnt something new. It’s a United States act.

The Sarbanes Oxley act is an act that was signed into US law in 2002. The act was designed to try and stop companies doing what Enron and Worldcom did. Both of these companies announced that they had been running on fraudulent deals for several years. At that time it was not required for the companies to show their books to the government.

What it does is it makes sure that the companies are run safely and lawfully, if it’s found that they are not, the owners are help resonsible for any wrong doing.

The act forces the Chief Executive Officers and the Chief Financial Officers to sign the books for the business. They are required to sign the records to say they don’t contain anything that’s false and that they match the companies earnings.

If the act is not abided by or the records are found to be false, the Chief Officers can be punished by the government.

Like I said at the beginning, you may not have to abide by the act. You only need to abide by the act if your company is based in either the US, UK or Europe and they have listings on the US stock exchange. You should also be required to follow the act if your company is based in Europe and it;s a subsidiary of a US company.

Some companies find the Sarbanes Oxley act to be a real pain. Because the company must report every transaction that has been made, even the sale and purchase of assets is required. This is where people have the problem because all the company’s fixed assets must before recorded.

The process of fixed asset accounting can be expensive and take time. If you do it yourself within the company it can take several months and can often result in errors. The easiest way to ensure you have recorded all your assets is by outsourcing the process to an asset management company.

Unfortunately, it’s still not a cheap process to do. However, a large number of asset tracking companies will give you different deals to help asset auditing alot simpler in the future. Many of the companies also offer Sarbanes Oxley compliance software which will make the job even easier for you.

Hopefully you will have learnt what the Sarbanes Oxley act it, whether you need to abide by it, and how you do it if you are required to. No doubt you won’t like the sound of the act, but you can blame Enron.

Worldwide, companies are being pressed by the current recession, so managing your fixed assets UK and using them to get the most money out of them is being more imporant than ever before. A great deal of companies are finding that asset management is more of a competitive edge as they try and get the most money from their assets that they own.

This need for efficiently managing asset tracking UK has led to more companies using real time solutions to manage their assets. By getting real time information as to how much your assets are worth, you can make business decisions based on real time data. It has also led to more companies using asset management services like reliability centered maintenance (RCM) or condition based maintenance (CBM).

RCM is a way of assessing your assets and trying to ensure that equipment failure that could damage the business does not happen. RCM finds out how the item is used within the company. It then looks at how a failure of that equipment occurs and how it effects the business. Finally, it then looks at how these failures can be avoided.

A study has been carried out by the Aberdeen Group called “Asset Performance Management: Driving Excellence Though a Reliability Approach in Real Time”. The study looked into companies and ranked them based on a number of different factors, overall equipment effectiveness, unscheduled asset downtime and finally complete and on-time product shipments. The study found that the best companies managed a 89% equipment effectiveness, 97% complete and on time shipments, and finally only 2% unscheduled asset downtime.

The study also found that the top performing companies are more likely to use a range of techniques to ensure that they can retrieve the best possible data about their assets. There are a number of different technologies that are used by the best companies. It was discovered that many of the top performers would happily invest money in more advanced methods of asset managment, such as remote asset monitoring.

These different technologies allow the companies to keep the information about their assets up to date for their employees and maintenance staff. This means that the companies can make decisions based on the information from their assets. It also aids companies to see how their financial earnings are effected by the performance of their assets.

The worldwide need for asset tracking has resulted in a number of companies offering different types of asset accounting UK software to try and help you sort the data you received from the assets.

Asset tracking is an absolutely vital component of any asset management function. Assets need to be managed both financially and physically. To do that requires knowledge of exactly where all your assets are, even if they are fixed. Many companies rely on a conventional spreadsheet approach to try to keep track of all their various assets, but that can prove problematic without the use of fixed asset software applicable and compliant with international regulations.

That’s especially important with IT asset tracking. IT equipment can often change during its operational lifetime. Components may be switched, replaced or upgraded. Software is constantly installed, uninstalled or upgraded. Many of these changes are internal and therefore invisible and even the use of an asset tracking system to control bar code-tagged assets will not keep track here. The fact that many IT systems are so desirable and useful can also contribute to their tendency to “disappear”.

Central to any asset tracking software system should be a powerful, centralised database which provides controlled access for all parties that require it, thus preventing discrepancies that may otherwise arise between departments. This system should also have the capacity to include information about those invisible software assets sitting on your IT network – how many programs and whether they are licenced or not? A single audit should be able to cover multiple locations and thousands of assets. It should also be fully compatible with inventory management systems, so that hand-held scanning devices typically employed to read barcode labels can integrate with both accounting and tracking modules to provide an accurate, validated, and consistently current database. This will enable users to comply fully and confidently with auditor requirements relating to accurately accounting for and tracking their asset base.

The features of the best fixed asset accounting software should include the use of portable scanners or more durable PDAs to input information and update the status of items on-site and in real time, including data such as make, model or serial number. Assets and inventory items can then be flagged as transferred, disposed of or missing.

Once the audit data has been uploaded into the asset or inventory register, users are able to run a report displaying not only the details of, but also the suggested actions (disposable, relocation, upgrade etc) for each of the assets located in the audit. In doing so, users are notified of any discrepancies in location or status of the asset prior to updating them on the fixed asset/inventory register.

If further analysis is needed, the asset tracking software can be used to produce a range of additional reports to provide a comprehensive account of all the changes that have been made to the registers. Reports can be sorted and sequenced as is appropriate to the individual organisation and can be viewed in a range of different mediums, including spreadsheets and MS Word documents.

With finance departments being held increasingly accountable for their fixed assets under the ever-changing and stringent requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley (Sarbox) and IFRS in particular, the need for an asset tracking system has never been greater for US companies or overseas operations that are subsidiaries of a US listed company. Organisations are required to remain up-to-date with the current compliance requirements for their sector. In particular, Sarbox requires CEOs and CFOs to personally certify that the company’s books and records are free of untrue statements and fairly represent the company’s results. Penalties built into Sarbox can be severe for non-compliance, false declarations and other violations, Fixed asset accounting can easily contribute to potential violations of Sarbox, under or overestimating the value of fixed assets or the incorrect application of depreciation rules.

Many accounting departments rely on the ever popular spreadsheet. They are quick and simple to set up and relatively easy to modify. It’s easy to define simple calculations and they are practical tools for management wanting to make “what-if” style projections. At the level of accounting complexity required in today’s legislative and business environment however, spreadsheets can quickly become too complex and difficult to verify. Integrating a spreadsheet with other enterprise systems to track asset changes or producing a clear audit trail is also difficult. Physical assets can easily “disappear” from a spreadsheet and IT assets (where most of the value is invisible software) are even harder to track effectively.

A far better solution is to use dedicated and tailor-made software that has the capacity to control, track and record the changes that occur within an asset’s lifetime. Real Asset Management International for example has systems that will provide accurate, up-to-date and historical data spanning the life span of an asset from the point from which the asset was entered onto the system to its present state. User-definable fields allow organisations the freedom to describe things in their own corporate language and a Windows inspired interface ensures that the learning curve is as steep as possible.

Systems like these save a lot of time and effort by eliminating the need to manually enter and update each asset and provide a seamless interface with leading general ledger products, thus retaining the usefulness of existing software and avoiding additional cost that would be required in upgrading or replacing legacy systems. Organisations and companies can opt to consolidate multiple registers for group reporting purposes and can concurrently maintain discrete financial information. Any number of historic and/or current cost accounting books can be set up to allow different values and currencies to be associated with individual assets and  the capacity to create fully comprehensive and detailed asset histories means keeping track of your physical and IT assets is  fully compliant, easier, quicker and cheaper.

When you consider the business landscape of just 10 years ago, the use of computer equipment has skyrocketed exponentially.You can’t find a single department in an organization these days that doesn’t depend on computers to work. In fact, computer usage has been at the centre of the success of many businesses and organizations, large and small.

Along with this symbiotic relationship with computing comes a strong dependence on the IT infrastructure supporting it. This could mean anything from computer hardware, keyboards and mice, software, monitors and more specialized hardware. Just in the United States this amount is in the $trillions.

But IT assets are notoriously tricky to keep track of and manage, particularly in large, sprawling organisations. Without tight control, monitoring and a strategic approach to replacing and renewing equipment, things can and frequently do descend into chaos. Nobody knows what IT equipment is being used in the organisation. Nobody in the organization really knows what computer software is being used and when the licenses will run out. The guys at the IT support line can’t deal with many of their queries efficiently due to lack of info on the specs of the caller’s machine. The seemingly simple task of upgrading software and hardware becomes a long, drawn out drain on resources.Does this have a familiar ring to it? Actually you would be surprized at how common it is in businesses today. Futhermore the expense associated with these issues can take a significant chunk out of your annual profits. Especially when you factor in the accounting side of things, where knowing exactly what IT assets you have and their depreciation value can mean significant tax savings.

The fact is you need to control IT assets or the costs associated with them can spiral out of control. The answer comes down to a process called fixed asset management. Fixed asset management for IT hardware and software basically falls into two distinct categories

Physical Assets. Essentially this is all about keeping a record of the IT equipment, hardware and software existing in the company or organization. This comprises information on inventory, as well as where and how each item is used. A robust system of asset tracking provides you with invaluable information on which you can act and introduce greater levels of efficiency.

Financial Assets. This is where the really big cost savings can be achieved.  Once you know exactly what equipment your organization is using, you can then calculate the level of capital depreciation. This information is music to your accounting deparment’s ears, as cutting costs on fixed assets can sometimes be the difference between profit and loss in a financial year.

A lot of businesses are aware of these issues relating to their IT equipment. The problem lies with inefficient techniques in trying to solve them. The old method of using an Excel spreadsheet to record fixed asset inventory is clunky and inneficient. However there are now highly sophisticated asset management software solutions on the market that are designed to tackle all aspects of asset tracking, accounting and management. Maybe the time has come for your company to lay down a little investment in this regard.

The deeper we get into this recession the more businesses and organizations are having to be clever with their finances to avoid going bust. One of the aspects often overlooked is inefficiency in your accounting which leads to asset leakage. If you ensure that you have a grasp on what’s happening with your fixed assets, chances are you’ll be able to make significant savings and boost your profits for relatively little effort.

What are fixed assets?

Let’s begin by defining what fixed assets are. Any business owns two different types of assets. Tangible or fixed assets are things like equipment, machinery, computers, buildings or land. In essence, they are objects of value that you can touch. Intangible assets are the ones you can’t see – like intellectual property, trademarks and patents. What we’re talking about here is the former type of asset.

What’s the point of worrying about my fixed assets?

Well, for starters, recording your fixed assets is a legal requirement on your accounting records. Failure to keep a record of them could land you in hot water. More importantly, if you have more information about them, you are able to make bigger cost savings. You need to be aware of where they are, their value and the depreciation of their value. In a sense asset tracking is a way for a business faced with financial hardship to pull cost savings ‘out of thin air’.

How do you track and control your asset inventory?

The first step is doing an audit of all your assets and keeping a record of them. Now this part is probably something you’ve taken care of already, seeing as it’s a legal requirement and all. Most commonly this is recorded on a humble spreadsheet, but increasingly savvy organisations are using more sophisticated asset management software. Beyond simply auditing and recording items in your asset register, you need to be able to track each and every asset. By tracking I mean keeping a constant record of its location, movements, state of repair, value, etc.If you’re a one man or woman show that doesn’t mean much more than looking around the room and noting down the model of your computer and desk lamp.However this task becomes more difficult when you’re talking about medium to large organizations. And this is where dedicated asset management software really comes into its own. With it you are able to take care of the whole process with ease – auditing, creating an asset register, tracking, maintenance, and accounting. Crucially, a well made package will be able to pinpoint where the largest cost savings in your organization can be made. I’d say that’s definitely something worth investing in.