20 Assets Every Facilities Manager Should Be Tracking Today

As a facilities manager, you’re responsible for so many assets that just keeping track of them all can feel like a full-time job. In the past, you may have gotten away with using spreadsheets for basic asset tracking.

But now, with new lease accounting standards in place, you need a lot more than just a running list of all the equipment you own. That means asset tracking is more important than ever. Here’s a quick reminder of what assets you need to include on your balance sheets and how to make sure you’re doing it right. 

The New Lease Accounting Standards

The new rules set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) went into effect for all public companies in December 2018 and will apply to all other companies starting December 15, 2019. 

They require organizations to list all lease assets with terms of more than 12 months as liabilities. They also require organizations to keep detailed information about each asset, including: 

• Lease agreement and type 
• Lease terms
• Start and end date
• The owner and lessee
• Monthly payment
• Fair market value 
• Useful life 

To comply with the new FASB lease accounting standards, you may need several sheets of information to accompany each asset. 

And if yours is a large organization or one with a lot of equipment—such as a manufacturing company or an airline—you may have tens of thousands of assets to manage. 

Of course, proper Facility asset management isn’t only a matter of compliance. It’s also important for preventative maintenance and a way to ensure your employees have equipment that works properly. 

20 Assets You Need to Be Tracking

Information Management Assets

Some of the most common and challenging assets to manage are those that work with your data. Information management assets such as computers and copiers cause your employees many difficulties if they’re not running smoothly. Well-managed computer systems facilitate employee communication. It’s also important to keep track of your digital assets such as software licenses to ensure that they don’t run out. FMs often remember to maintain desktop technologies, but mobile technologies are sometimes overlooked. In the world of information management, you’ll need to track and maintain:

• Printers
• Copiers / MFD fleet
• Desktop and laptop computers
• Other IT Equipment
• Software licenses

Employee Personal Equipment

One of the most overlooked areas of asset management is employees’ personal equipment. While you know the importance of a fleet maintenance software to maintain your vehicle fleet so that it’s safe for employees to use, other types of personal equipment also have a big impact on your employees’ health and safety. When you’re tracking employee-related assets, you should track:

• Safety equipment
• Badges
• Mobile devices
• Radios
• Uniforms
• Keys
• Vehicles

Facility-Related Assets

These assets are what you might think of when you’re planning facilities maintenance and management. They’re what makes your business look good or what brings down the overall feel of your facilities. Excellent equipment ensures that employees have a good workflow and that employees and external organizations have well-maintained places to meet. It’s important to maintain all of these physical assets, including break room appliances that keep employees happy at work. The facility-related assets that you must track include:

• Floors
• HVAC equipment
• Paint
• Signs
• Lighting
• Desk
• Carpet
• Break room appliances

The Benefits of Asset Tracking Software

When you consider all the assets your company has—from million-dollar machines to individual employee laptops— it’s easy to see why you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you’re still using spreadsheets.

Spreadsheets aren’t just incredibly inefficient; they’re also difficult to manage among multiple departments or buildings. Even if you’re keeping them in a shared folder in the cloud, it’s too easy for them to be duplicated, edited or even deleted altogether. And with all the information you need to store on each asset now, there’s no way you can keep it all in one place. 

You need asset tracking software that allows you to manage all of your assets easily and efficiently. A facilities management system that includes asset tracking can help you define and classify your assets so that you know what you have and where, as well as what it costs you to lease or own it. 

iOFFICE’s Facility asset management software makes it easy to store important records of each asset, view it through its entire lifecycle and determine the total cost of ownership. 

For instance, you can:

• Create individual profiles for each asset and use barcodes to scan and track them
• Add photos, warranty information or manuals 
• View and track any asset by type, location and contract details
• Prioritize and assign asset maintenance
• Create real-time dashboards on assets for full visibility throughout your organization

When your assets are in order, you can be confident your organization is complying with lease accounting standards, keeping costs in check and ensuring employees have what they need to be productive. 

To see our Facility asset tracking system in action, watch this short demo video.