A Cloud-based Asset Management Software can offer;
1. Properties, Facilities or Buildings Management
5 to 20% of overall fixed asset costs are contributed by properties, facilities or buildings which are quite often referred to as fixed assets.
A property asset management software will help in recording the purchase price, appreciation or depreciation, and disposal price of your fixed assets.
Most accounting standards like GAAP, IFRS, BSI require you to disclose all your assets on your annual return to companies house. Hence, most organisations use an asset management solution to accurately track the value of their assets.
Apart from the financial requirement, properties and facilities require frequently planned and preventative maintenance, cleaning, security management, visitor tracking and energy management to be operational. An asset management system will help you schedule, record and report on these activities.
A modern property asset management software will provide a framework to:
- Develop and maintain an effective Fixed Asset Register
- Calculate the appreciation or depreciation of fixed assets
- Schedule, track and monitor maintenance activities
- Record cleaning activities
- Manage workplace layout
- Track visitors and occupants for safety and security
- Energy management of properties
2. IT Assets Management
Businesses get a lot of value from knowing the exact location, status, user, usage and license renewal of IT Assets. A cloud based IT Asset Management System helps businesses to maintain an accurate IT Asset Register.
Software Asset Management helps businesses to reduce cost of software ownership, optimise the number of software assets required, and maintain compliance with vendor contracts.
Tagging, Tracking and Reporting on hardware assets assists with the procurement and disposal of hardware assets. Importantly, businesses get to know “who has which hardware”.
A contemporary IT Inventory Management Solution will provide:
- On-demand view of your IT Inventory
- Manage entitlements and endpoints
- Get to know the usage of your Cloud and On-Premise IT Assets
- Ringfence your IT Network to be cybersafe
- Monitor compliance with software vendor contracts
- Easily know “what you have and who is using it”
3. Equipment and Machinery Management
Downtimes in equipment and machinery can cost 3 to 18% of total revenue. So businesses like to maximise uptime of their machinery.
An asset management software provides a framework that you can schedule for planned, preventative and reactive maintenance. This includes scheduling maintenance, organising internal and external maintenance engineers, issuing work orders, arranging spare parts and disposal. Asset management tools that specialise in equipment and maintenance management are called Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS).
Maintaining equipment and machinery, production targets and company targets are interlinked. Most modern cloud-based asset management tools will help you in organising your planned and preventative maintenance in such a way that it has minimal impact on production and company targets.
Another element catching-up pace is Industrial Internet of Things (IOT). Modern equipment and machinery transmit operating conditions like temperature, pressure, service status etc. about themselves. IOT friendly asset management solutions can capture this data from cloud and provide insightful and actionable reports to increase uptime of the machinery.
An effective computerised maintenance management system will help you to:
- Schedule planned and preventative maintenance activities
- Assign jobs to internal and external maintenance engineers
- Order replacement parts
- Optimise maintenance costs
- Effectively manage reactive maintenance activities
- Improve age and uptime of your equipment and machinery
4. Stock or Inventory Management
Asset tracking capabilities of an asset management system are quite often used to track stock and inventory, just like buildings, properties and facilities (typically referred to as fixed assets). The UK Accounting practice requires companies to declare their assets on their balance sheets which include the stock/inventory an organisation holds. Hence, businesses like to record all their assets in one place called an asset register.
The technology used in tracking your stock and inventory can be RFID, Barcodes and NFC. Quite often, a hand-held scanner is used in reading an asset.
Typically, inventory is connected with users, location and projects. In some cases, it can be leased as well.
A modern cloud-based asset management tool allows companies to know detailed status of all their stock and inventory and will help you to:
- Eliminate or reduce unknown assets
- Track leased and owned inventory
- Use RFID, Barcodes and Handheld scanners to Tag, Track and Report on your stock and inventory
5. Fleet Management
Just like properties and inventory, modern asset management tools can help you track the location of your fleet assets. The technology often used in tracking fleet assets is Global Positioning System (GPS).
Asset Management Tools specialised to manage fleet are called fleet asset management tools. They provide more than just tracking; elements like speed of your individual asset, if the driver of your movable asset adhered to all the defined rules and protocols can also be scheduled and monitored.
A cloud-based fleet asset management solution will:
- Track the location of your fleet assets
- Track speed and traffic compliance of your fleet assets
- Optimise pick-up and delivery routine
- Reduce fleet maintenance costs
6. Digital Assets Management
Files, Images, Videos and Intellectual contents need to be stored in a way that is both protected and also easy to find. Digital asset management system provides a framework to organise, search, share and protect your digital assets.
An impactful Digital Asset Management System will help you to:
- Develop and Maintain a common “go-to” place for your digital assets
- Organise access based on requirements
- Protect IP by ring fencing your digital assets
- Avoid duplication of digital assets
- Optimise storage costs for your digital assets
7. Bespoke Assets Management
Defence, Infrastructure, National and Complex assets are typical examples of bespoke assets. The protocols required to manage bespoke assets are unique. Modern asset management tools offer the flexibility required to capture unique ways of managing special assets, yet at the same time provide the framework to report on assets that meet standard accounting rules.
A modern Asset Management System will help you to:
- Develop bespoke asset management protocols
- Optimise maintenance costs
- Increase age and uptime of bespoke assets
- Calculate appreciation and depreciation of bespoke assets