Counting IT and office equipment: serial numbers, users and locations

Office equipment is the easiest asset to count and the easiest to get wrong. A laptop is on the desk on Monday, in a bag on Tuesday and at a customer's site on Wednesday. Monitors are swapped between desks, phones go home with their users, and the register still says "Room 12". The count has to ask a different question from the one used for machinery: not only where the item is, but who has it.

Record three things in one pass

On a single encounter with the device, record the asset number, the serial number and the user. Location and condition go on the same line.

• Asset number: the number on the tag attached to the device.
• Type and model: laptop, monitor, phone, docking station or printer, and the model as written on the device.
• Serial number: the number shown on the device itself.
• User: name and department.
• Location: building, floor, room, or "with user, remote".
• Condition: working, damaged or spare. Accessories such as chargers can be noted if relevant.

Nobody opens a device, logs in or looks at the data inside. The count records identifiers only.

Read the serial number from the device

• Read the number printed on the label or plate of the device, not the one on the box or in the old register. Scan the barcode if there is one.
• Serial numbers contain easily confused characters, such as O and 0, I and 1, B and 8. A photo of the plate lets you check a doubtful character later.
• Check that no serial number appears twice in the list. A duplicate points to a typing error or to two devices having been swapped.

Count by person, not only by room

• Announce the count a few days ahead, and ask users to leave devices on their desks or bring them to a set place at a set time.
• Walk desk by desk along a fixed route. For an absent user, mark "absent", leave a note and come back the next day.
• For remote workers and people on business trips, ask for a photo showing the tag and the serial number, sent to a named contact the same day, and mark the line "verified by photo".
• Treat spare and stored equipment, in a cupboard or the IT room, as one more location and record it the same way.
• If the IT department keeps its own device list, use it as a second source and compare.
• Devices lent to temporary or external staff get the expected return date next to the user's name.

Devices that cannot be found

Decide before the count who follows up on missing devices. For illustration, a timetable could be: on day 0, mark the line "not found" and ask the user and neighbours; on day 3, ask the user's manager; on day 7, pass a written note to the person responsible for assets. What follows is the company's decision and may involve finance, security or HR. Treatment in the books and any legal steps are matters for your accountant and lawyer. The count's job is to hand over a clean, dated list of unfound items with the last known user and location. Do not blame anyone; record facts. Review the list again after a month, because some devices reappear when a drawer or a storeroom is tidied.

For illustration, take an office with 120 staff and 214 tagged devices. The count verifies 196 at desks and 11 by photo, finds 4 spares in the IT cupboard and cannot find 3 (two monitors and a phone). The figures 196, 11, 4 and 3 add up to 214. If 5 more devices turn up that are not in the register, they go under "unrecorded assets".

Summary

An office equipment count is finished when label, serial number and user have been checked together and someone has been named for each missing item. Smart Inventory tags IT and office assets with barcode labels, records serial number, user and location in one pass and compares the results with your asset register, setting missing and unrecorded devices apart.