5 Asset Reports to Improve Your Asset Management
Asset Management Software / October 2024
Asset management reports are used to provide clarity on a business’s asset portfolio. Reports are exported from dedicated asset management systems to review detailed information on areas such as asset performance, the use of business assets, and financial returns.
Essentially, detailed reports help to drive better decision-making among asset managers, investors, and stakeholders. A business can better optimise its return on asset investments by enabling efficient tracking, monitoring, and analysis through reporting.
Overall, there are five reports used to improve asset management strategies:
- Financial, Accounting and Audit
- Asset Portfolio Health
- Asset Tracking & Allocation
- Lifecycle Management
- Maintenance and Performance
Use our Asset Management Software Finder to Identify the Best Tools For Generating Asset Reports
What Type of Assets Are You Looking to Manage?
1. Financial, Accountancy & Audit Reports
Financial and accounting asset reports are essential when it comes to preparing data for auditors. These reports provide information regarding the financial structure of your assets. Including:
- Income expenses (purchase price)
- Current valuation
- Asset depreciation
- Disposal costs (counting ageing assets & maintenance work)
Financial asset reports are associated with a business’s fixed assets, or PP&E (Property, Plant, and Equipment). With the purpose being to analyse and calculate each asset’s potential earnings, running costs, and useful life valuation.
Generating the right financial reports can also help underlie assets under management (AUM), which gives businesses the total market value of the assets they own and manage. As well as providing the data required for the basis of a yearly balance sheet.
Reporting on asset valuation and accounting provides clarity on what a business owes and owns at that point. The record information must be correct, which can be achieved through proper asset verification audits.
In the UK, AMR found that 65% of fixed asset data was repeatedly incorrect or missing, resulting in false accounting records and higher costs on insurance and tax.
Audit reports should also be taken into consideration when exporting and analysing data. The financial auditing of fixed assets is vital as it helps to ensure that accounting practices are compliant and in line with operational objectives. Producing audit reports with Asset Management Software is a fast and accurate way of supplying external auditors with the financial information they need.
2. Asset Portfolio Health Report
The foundation of good asset management is accurate and up-to-date data. Whether you own, lease, or rent your assets, it’s important to have access to all asset data in one place.
That goes for small businesses with less than 1000 assets on-site and large organisations with over 100,000 assets across multiple sites.
Exporting asset data in one quick action enables asset managers to filter and amend missing information. That includes:
- Purchase details (date of purchase, cost, invoice, etc.)
- Valuations (initial cost, running costs, market comparisons, and deprecation)
- Maintenance history (scheduled, cost of repairs, unplanned downtime, etc.)
- Incident reports
- Asset allocation and location
Portfolio health reports ensure important data isn’t missing. Thorough analysis can help identify ghost assets, highlight maintenance issues, and even reduce the amount of lost or stolen equipment.
Errors are typically found after data has been input from spreadsheets. Most likely after a business has switched from using spreadsheets to Asset Management Software. With 88% of all spreadsheets containing at least one error.
Thomas Maynard, Head Of Facilities at Honest Burgers, realised the importance of accurate asset data during a dark kitchen build; “Another one that I’ve seen mistakes made in companies is not having an up-to-date asset list, and not keeping updated as the equipment is condemned or it breaks down beyond repair.”
3. Asset Tracking & Allocation Reporting
Inventory reporting and asset allocation reports are used primarily with fixed and physical (tangible) assets. They provide information on:
- Globally distributed assets
- Historical asset location
- Assigned users
- Stock purchasing details
- MRO inventory
- Spare parts stock levels
Most importantly, inventory reporting can help make sure stock, goods, and equipment are all being utilised. Inventory data can also be tied in with a business’s procurement reports, displaying pending orders, supplier information, and asset valuation.
An industry that relies on inventory reporting is real estate. Property inventory reporting is used to detail all contents within a property to help prevent tenant disputes and note the condition of components.
These reports can also be used for IT asset management reports for digital and software assets and to track software license usage. Businesses can see which software licenses are being used, which aren’t, and which ones need to be updated. Proving useful in the offboarding of employees by knowing who has access to what and what needs to be revoked.
4. Asset Lifecycle Reports
Asset lifecycle reports are essential for understanding and improving asset lifecycle management. These reports rely heavily on the accuracy of portfolio data and display detailed information regarding an asset’s:
- Purchase data (planning and acquisition)
- Operational output
- Maintenance history
- Disposal plan
Lifecycle reports offer key data to asset managers that help mitigate potential risks and display the importance of an asset to a business’s operations. This also helps asset managers to understand the financial contribution of an asset in terms of investment and operational returns.
Within this report, information will be provided on transactional history and an asset’s overall income and expenses. This is helpful when making informed decisions on whether to keep, maintain, or dispose of assets.
An example would be an asset that costs £1000 to purchase yet has a yearly maintenance upkeep fee of £1500. If this asset is not contributing more than it costs to purchase and maintain, it should be written off.
5. Asset Maintenance Reports
Asset maintenance and operations are intertwined within the most important stage of an asset’s lifecycle. By generating a detailed maintenance report, maintenance teams and asset managers are kept informed about the efficiency of assets. Giving insights into optimal performance windows, running costs, and preferred maintenance strategy.
A maintenance report includes inspection dates, maintenance schedules, and an asset’s lifecycle progress. By having access to this data, asset managers can effectively plan and budget future costs for when work is due to be carried out.
For businesses that consist mostly of physical assets, having a maintenance planning programme can help to keep equipment and machinery in optimal working order for longer. A maintenance plan can help reduce unplanned downtime and ensure you’re extracting the most value from your assets. Strategies for doing so include:
- Preventive maintenance
- Predictive maintenance
- Condition-based maintenance
- Reliability-centred maintenance
- Reactive maintenance
Why Asset Reports Are Essential for Asset Managers
Asset reports are an important source of information needed to improve the management of a company’s assets. They’re a form of intelligence that allows asset managers to understand and enhance asset life cycle management. Starting with planning and ending with asset disposal.
Without asset management tools, most businesses will detail their asset management tasks in spreadsheets. However, manual reporting methods such as using Excel asset management spreadsheets can be harmful and error-prone.
Without the ability to generate and analyse detailed asset reports, businesses face multiple challenges such as:
- Losing track of expenses and costs
- Being unprepared for financial audits
- Inconsistent inventory management
- Lack of workflow efficiency and productivity
The most effective way of gathering asset data is with reporting and analytic features found in Asset Management Software. These tools can create fixed asset registers, track assets in real-time, and reduce operational costs. All of which are delivered in detailed asset reports.
Generate the Right Asset Reports For Your Business With Asset Management Software
Using Asset Management Software to Generate Asset Reports
The type of asset reports you need will depend on your specific assets and the critical information needed for monitoring and evaluating them.
No matter the report type, obtaining asset data should be quick, easy, and hassle-free. This helps to free up your time to concentrate on other areas of your asset management.
The data that you access should also be comprehensive and informative enough to help improve strategic decisions within the business. The best way to achieve this is with Asset Management Software.
Asset Management Software delivers the features and capabilities to digitalise all asset data and automatically generate asset reports when needed.
FAQs
What Is an Asset Report?
As asset report is a digitally generated file downloaded from an asset management system that provides on-demand data for asset managers. An asset report can be exported in spreadsheets or displayed in PDF format to present to stakeholders and to help improve the efficiency of a business’s overall asset management efforts.
What Are the Types of Asset Management Reports?
Asset management reports can vary depending on industry and asset data, they include:
- Procurement and disposal reports
- Asset value and financial reports
- Inventory management
- Maintenance scheduling
- Asset performance and usage
- Asset location reports