5 Ways to Use Asset Tags with Your Asset Tracking Software

Investing in asset tags is a great idea if your company deals with a large variety of physical assets. Bolstering asset visibility can lower overheads and save employees a lot of time. It also helps companies quickly pull up details, plan ahead for the future, and make well-informed decisions about procurement and maintenance.
The worrying fact, however, is that 30% of all businesses aren’t aware of all the equipment they own! Think of all the problems this could lead to, such as over-ordering stock, or items expiring and rusting away because of little or no preventive maintenance or scheduled audits. By helping businesses avoid all these pitfalls, asset tags become a no-brainer when it comes to optimizing business processes.
These tags go hand in hand with a robust asset tracking software. Think of asset tags as a convenient solution whose value can be compounded through a specialized software tool. To this end, we’ll outline 5 ways you can get the most out of your asset tags by employing the features present in equipment tracking software.

Carry out effortless audits

Security is a major concern for all businesses, especially when it comes to physical assets. You might own a few really expensive pieces of construction equipment, for example, or thousands of smaller custom-made tools that would be a hassle to replace. Taking the example of the construction sector further, 92% of respondents from this industry claimed to have experienced theft on the job! Whatever your requirements, safeguarding your equipment from theft, misplacement, or loss, is vital if you want to stay in the black. This is where audits come in handy. You can use an asset tracking mobile app or barcode reader to go through all your equipment tags at regular intervals. Customized reports drawn up at the end could let you know which equipment is missing, who had custody of it, and the location it was last at! All of this information can help you recover stolen or misplaced items, and ensure you’re not paying taxes or maintenance fees on ghost assets.

Schedule preventive maintenance to lower downtimes

Downtimes can be a huge obstacle for companies, especially when they’re unexpected. They can not only halt productivity if workarounds aren’t found, but can also raise maintenance costs and lower asset longevity. To overcome this, asset tags can be used so workers can pull up MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) details instantly. This can be a big help when someone wants to see specific repair instructions, for example, or confirm an item’s maintenance schedule. All these tasks would take a lot more time if you had to find an alternative to simply scanning in an item, checking details, and continuing on with your work without any distractions or obstructions!

Maintenance schedules improve asset longevity and eliminate emergency servicing costs.

Do status checks for convenience

Do you want to know whether the item in front of you belongs to the IT department, but don’t want to trawl through pages of documentation to find out? Perhaps you want to see who an asset was checked out to last, before it came in with parts missing? Barcodes make all of this information instantly accessible. Scanning the item into an asset tracking system enables you to pull up details relating to custodianship, maintenance schedules, and scores of other important data contained within custom fields for you to peruse! This can reinforce accountability by putting employee associations onto the asset tags themselves, so that everyone knows they’re responsible for the items they have on hand. You can even color-code tags to make status checks even easier, for example, by having different colors for different departments, or even operations heads.

Use mobile apps to easily locate assets on the go

A lot of times, businesses use assets that are constantly being moved from one location to another – whether it’s between offices, or from warehouses to business sites. Pulling up records on the field can be a hassle, and being out of a strictly administrative context in this way can actually lead to errors in data collection! This is why asset tracking mobile apps that allow you to scan barcodes from any location are a huge boon for businesses. You can account for assets from any place – whether it’s a construction site, a big corporate event, or even in long-haul transit! By updating information so close to the point of action, you’re not only improving the accuracy of your records, you’re also streamlining efforts by getting two things done at once! Remember that for rough terrain with extreme temperatures and environmental elements, you’d want to use durable asset tags specifically made for that job.

Being able to scan asset labels on the field can cut down on administrative tasks and save valuable time.

Stay on top of stock using inventory control features

Stock really has a way of getting away from you! Companies must manage stock expirations, eliminate over-stocking, and ensure they’re never out of stock when it’s needed. This is easy to overcome through asset tags. You can scan them into an inventory control software, and see all kinds of details relating to inventory, such as consumption, low stock thresholds, and the quantities available at each location. Asset tags make the process of managing hundreds or thousands of small inventory items really painless! Not just this, but you can use these tags to replenish inventory through purchase orders, and update your inventory database in real-time! Another nuance is the ability to have different types of tags for different inventory items. They can be removable, tamper-evident, destructible – all different types for all your inventory needs!

Conclusion

Asset tags are a great resource for businesses wanting to cut down on processing times, improve data accuracy, and schedule audits or maintenance events a lot more effectively. Asset tracking software can take asset tags to the next level, by integrating the convenience of asset tags with well thought out features meant to help you get the most out of your assets!
This article was contributed by asset tracking software EZOfficeInventory. Featured on TechCrunch, it has enabled thousands of businesses to improve ROIs, recover losses, and increase team collaboration.